Thomas Bayrle

Madonna Croche

1988

Silkscreen print on gray fabric, 175.3 x 129.5 cm

Thomas Bayrle (b. 1937, Berlin) currently lives and works in Frankfurt, Germany. Bayrle studied commercial art and design at the Werkkunstschule in Offenbach. As a key figure within the movement of German Pop Art, Bayrle specialises in ‘superform’ large images composed of iterations of smaller cell-like images.

“I was interested in icons from an early age. In that type of religious painting, forms are given: the size, the colours, the handling of the paint – they are all decided, strictly regulated by tradition. It’s like a machine, but a machine made by monks. I liked this idea of repetition; I like that monks painted by following rigid rules, but I also liked that even within such a strict structure there was always space for diversity.”