Acquisitions
ARTIST ROOMS: The d'Offay Donation
Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)
Six rooms comprising 136 works including: 20 sculptures; Untitled, 1970 (a portrait of the artist on canvas on the theme of Elastic Foot: Plastic Foot), two further photographic works dated 1980; 110 drawings and watercolours, three multiples and the family’s archive of 422 posters.
Beuys is recognised as one of the most influential figures of the second half of the twentieth century. Artist, political and social activist (he was a founder of the Green Party) and educator, Beuys’s philosophy proposed the healing power and social function of art in which all people can participate and benefit. His works are based on what he called ‘constellations of ideas’ and can incorporate any kind of material or object to represent these ideas according to their various inherent properties or purposes. From the 1950s onwards many of his works are made from or allude to a distinctive group of materials, in particular felt, fat and copper for their insulating, conductive and protective, transmitting and transforming properties. Beuys produced a vast body of work that bridges art and science and includes performance, drawing, print-making, sculpture and installation. His complex, interlocking themes cover archaeology, geology, anthropology, zoology, myth, history, intuition, medicine, energy and communication, amongst others. Beuys’s own image and life story is inextricably linked to his work and he registers as a shamanistic presence throughout his oeuvre. This group of works brings together important subjects from the sixties such as the Fat Chair with later works from the 1980s, culminating with the important Scala Napoletana which dates from the period of Beuys’s final work Palazzo Regale. It was made at the same time in Naples, only a few months before his death, and relates to the same theme of the shaman/king’s death and communication with the beyond.
Pregnant Woman with Swan 1959
Schwangere und Schwan
Oil and watercolour on paper
276 x 213 mm
Photo courtesy Anthony d'Offay Ltd
© Estate of Joseph Beuys/DACS 2008
Fat Chair 1964-1985
Fettstuhl
Mixed media
Overall display dimensions variable
Photo courtesy Anthony d'Offay Ltd
© Estate of Joseph Beuys/DACS 2008
Untitled 1970
Ohne Titel
Photograph on canvas
2410 x 2355 mm
Photo courtesy Anthony d'Offay Ltd
© Estate of Joseph Beuys/DACS 2008
Scala Napoletana 1985
Wood, steel wire and lead
Overall display dimensions variable
Photo courtesy Anthony d'Offay Ltd
© Estate of Joseph Beuys/DACS 2008
Artists
- Diane Arbus
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- Georg Baselitz
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- Joseph Beuys
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- Vija Celmins
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- Ellen Gallagher
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- Gilbert & George
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- Johan Grimonprez
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- Richard Hamilton
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- Ian Hamilton Finlay
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- Damien Hirst
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- Jenny Holzer
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- Alex Katz
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- Anselm Kiefer
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- Jeff Koons
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- Jannis Kounellis
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- Sol LeWitt
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- Richard Long
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- Robert Mapplethorpe
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- Agnes Martin
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- Mario Merz
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- Ron Mueck
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- Bruce Nauman
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- Charles Ray
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- Gerhard Richter
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- Ed Ruscha
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- Robert Ryman
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- Robert Therrien
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- Cy Twombly
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- Bill Viola
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- Andy Warhol
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- Lawrence Weiner
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- Francesca Woodman
