Untitled (Fabric Painting), 1970
Dyed linen-weave cotton backed by untreated cotton
200 x 70 cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

Untitled, 1970
Cotton on muslin on stretcher
200 x 200 x 3 cm
Private Collection, Bonn

Palermo made his cloth paintings from lengths of fabric bought at Düsseldorf department stores. An artist's traditional job of mixing and applying paint to a canvas is here replaced by a cleaner process of choosing colours, cutting fabric, and sewing seams. Palermo's first cloth paintings date from 1966, the same year that Gerhard Richter first investigated readymade colour in his colour chart paintings. The closeness of the two artists was such that Richter's wife, Ema, sewed the seams of many of Palermo's cloth paintings.