Ferdinand Kulmer
On Red, 1965
oil on canvas
107 × 146 cm
MG-2657

Ferdinand Kulmer (1925–1998) was a modernist and postmodernist painter whose Mercury-like agility enabled him to move effortlessly from one style to another. He descended from the noble Kulmer family, Styrian barons who settled in Croatia in the 18th century. Among his ancestors, the most influential was the lawyer and politician Franjo Kulmer. Art historian Tonko Maroević aptly captured the essence of the artist’s life with the observation that while Pablo Picasso first painted and then bought castles, for Ferdinand Kulmer the order was reversed.
During and immediately after the Second World War, Kulmer studied painting in Budapest from 1942 and continued his studies in Zagreb until 1948 under the guidance of Ljubo Babić and Omer Mujadžić. He also worked as an associate in the Master Workshop of Krsto Hegedušić until 1957.
The range of stylistic transformations across three decades of creative work is remarkable, forming a distinctive hybrid of artistic languages. His oeuvre spans from (post-)Fauvist figuration and influences of Picasso, through an abstract period beginning in 1957 that embraced Art Informel, Tachisme, monochrome painting, and elements of action painting and calligraphy, to the postmodern New Figuration of the 1980s. In the 1960s, he was closely aligned with gestural Informel painting, drawing inspiration from Hans Hartung and Pierre Soulages, while in the 1970s he turned toward Japanese calligraphy.
Kulmer’s painting On Red (1965) reveals an artist who, in the words of Igor Zidić, “rose above earthly space on the wings attached to his shoes, disregarding reality and causality.” Through accumulations of Informel structures and a controlled automatism, Kulmer creates a work of complex visual and material qualities. The painting is, at the same time, a bare material fact; yet its red and brown tonalities contribute to the atmosphere and the powerful aesthetic intensity of the composition.

Text: Željko Marciuš, Senior Museum Advisor at the National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Photo: From the archive of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb