Imi Knoebel

Born Klaus Wolf Knoebel in Dessau, Knoebel adopted his first name Imi after he met fellow artist Rainer Giese at art school. Both artists chose to work together under the moniker "Imi und Imi". After Giese's untimely death in 1974, Knoebel decided to keep the name.

Having been taught in the famous class of Joseph Beuys at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1960s, four-time documenta participant Knoebel decided to take a completely different direction than his teacher. Over the years, he became one of the main protagonists of minimalism, geometrical abstraction and colour field painting in post-war Germany. Influenced by the early abstract experiments of Russian Suprematist Kazimir Malevich or the primary colours of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, Knoebel's works are marked as much by a rigid and intellectual statement for abstraction as by a deep understanding of the sensual qualities of colour and form.