Imi Knoebel Dessau, Germany, b. 1940

One of the leading German artists of the post-war period, Imi Knoebel (b. 1940, Dessau), studied under the tutelage of Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he initiated a lifelong commitment to the fundamental questions of all non-representational art.

Imi Knoebel's rigorously abstract work investigates the fundamentals of painting and sculpture. His serial, experimental practice is characterised by a haptic use of colour, a geometric vocabulary of forms and material simplicity. Since the 1990s he has increasingly painted on shaped aluminium, creating colour fields defined by the relationship between pigment and boundary, while retaining traces of the hand in his gestural strokes. His development is far from linear: he reactivates earlier concepts and resists categorisation.

Knoebel took part in documenta 5, 6 and 7 (1972-82). Retrospectives of his work have been held at the Haus der Kunst, Munich (1996), the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2014) and the Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2018), with major presentations at Dia:Beacon, New York (2008), and the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2009).