Fritz Glarner - Relational Painting

Haus Konstruktiv - Foundation for Constructivist and Concrete Art, Zurich Relational Painting: Constructivist artists in Russian Constructivism and the later movements of «de Stjil» and «Bauhaus» were concerned not only with fine art but also with product design, architecture and interior design.Glarner's design of the «Rockefeller Dining Room» was very much in line with the idea of integrating art into everyday life. The dining room was his first (and only) commission to design the complete interior of a room. Glarner intended the dining room to be a kind of walk-in painting, not only with regard to materialisation (oil painting, panels), but also to the concept of «Relational Painting». From the late 1940s onwards, Glarner applied this concept to his work to express his chief interest in the relation of the work's parts to one another, both as regards the complex relationships between colours (the primaries red, blue and yellow, as well as grey, black and white), the interaction between forms, and the relations of form and colour. His compositions were based on the rectangle diagonally cut into further surfaces. The «Rockefeller Dining Room» stayed in place for some twenty years only, and was put up for sale in the 1980s. The Foundation for Constructivist and Concrete Art succeeded in persuading the Paul Büchi-Stiftung in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, to acquire this environment. [p.mule field visit]