27/10/2026
MARUANI MERCIER is delighted to announce its representation of the Estate of Georg Karl Pfahler.
Born in Emetzheim, Germany, in 1926, Pfahler was a pioneering figure of European Hard-Edge painting and postwar abstraction. After studying in Nuremberg, he continued his education at the Kunstakademie Stuttgart under Willi Baumeister, graduating in 1954. Initially influenced by Art Informel, he began to simplify his forms in the late 1950s, developing the Formativ series and the distinctive visual language for which he became known: bold geometric compositions, sharply defined forms, and vibrant, contrasting fields of color.
For Pfahler, color was more than a formal element; it could shape perception and transform the experience of space. From the mid-1960s, he extended this inquiry beyond painting, creating three-dimensional Farb-Raum-Objekte (Color-Space Objects) and architectural environments that brought viewers into a direct encounter with color and space.
His work is held in major international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Buenos Aires, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Museum Folkwang in Essen, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, and the Daimler Art Collection. Moving between painting, sculpture, and architecture, Pfahler developed a lasting vision of color as a force capable of redefining the relationship between artwork, viewer, and space.
Featured:
Georg Karl Pfahler
“DA-OBG”, 1967-68
acrylic on canvas
180 x 160 cm - 70 7/8 x 63 in
Georg Karl Pfahler
“Cloff”, 1965-75
acrylic on canvas
200 x 190 x 4 cm - 78 3/4 x 74 3/4 x 1 5/8 in
