Literature: Thomas Weber / Volker Dahmen (eds.), K. F. Dahmen, Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1, 1946-1965, Cologne, 2003, 125, no. 018.54

In the early 1950s, Karl Fred Dahmen developed urban or natural landscapes in which one could "never read off the object, but rather it only became foreseeable in an overall conception." This can be seen in the titles, which are either concretely named ("Stadtbild", "Rue Palissy"), constructively located ("Kleiner Raumplan"), or abstracted ("Komposition"), or remain deliberately free, as in this untitled work from around 1954. Distinguishing himself from the Informalists and Tachists to whom he was associated through his sojourns in France, Dahmen wrote: "I have actually had much stronger references to a constructive world than to a total dissolution and a painting devoted only to gesture." In a sense, the Cubist idea lives on in the earthy painting that shimmers from within.