To Theo Van Gogh
Knud Merrild
KNUD MERRILD, 1951. OIL ON MASONITE.
In turn of the century Denmark, Merrild began his career as an apprentice house painter. The monotony of the work was meditative, and the techniques of paint mixing and application formed the basis of his most famous series of works. Yet, for all the influence his ‘Flux’ paintings had on 20th century abstract expressionism, Merrild worked as a house painter on occasion throughout his life, it serving as a financial bedrock in eras of low income. The ‘Flux’ paintings, such as the one here, were made by diluting oil paints into viscous, flowable forms, and dripping them onto the canvas in rhythmic motion to create post-surreal works that serve as a collaboration between Merrild and chance itself. Moving to America in the early 1920s, he became part of a group of writers that included D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, and Aldous Huxley, who all saw in the experimental Dane a kindred spirit who expressed his ideas of post-modernity through abstract forms rather than words.