Sigmar Polke: Miracle of Siegen, The Lens Paintings/ Wunder Von Siegen, Die Linsenbilder

Sigmar Polke (born 1941) has been experimenting for more than 40 years with different styles and subject matter as well as with a variety of materials and techniques. His creative diversity is demonstrated powerfully in the new group of works presented in this book, the so-called ‘lenticular pictures’, or lens paintings. Polke applies a layer of structure gel, usually used to thicken acrylic paint, to a previously painted picture and then slides a saw-toothed scraper over the surface, to which he later adds more paint. The resulting works have an unexpected three-dimensional quality, providing the viewer with different images according to the angle from which the painting is viewed. Photographs showing the paintings in progress – all specially selected for the book by Polke – reveal the artist’s idiosyncratic use of surface, his application of colour and his subtly humorous way of combining abstraction and realism.