Georg Karl Pfahler

Georg Karl Pfahler (8 October 1926 – 6 January 2002) was the first German hard edge painter, printmaker and sculptor, and one of the leading proponents of post-war color field painting in Germany and Europe.

After his early "Metropolitan" pictures, Pfahler developed pictorial configurations around 1956, in which he experimented with the spatial effects of color in a manner reminiscent of the pointillist technique used by French Divisionists.

The term "formativ" (formative), which he added to the titles of his pictures from 1958 on, marked his emancipation as a painter from the more formless style influenced by Willi Baumeister.

In about 1962 block-like forms turned into crisply demarcated color surfaces, which elevate Pfahler to being the sole representative of "Hard-Edge Painting" in Germany.

He achieved his international breakthrough in exhibitions such as "Signale" 1965 in Basel, "Formen der Farbe" 1967 in Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Bern or "Painting and Sculpture from Europe" 1968 in New York City, where he presented the pictures he created in the early 1960s at Fischbach Gallery curated by Barnett Newman.