Gunther
Forg

An untitled work from 1990 achieved Förg's current auction record when it sold at Christie's London in February 2020. This acrylic work, the earliest on this list, distinguishes itself from his later Spot Paintings through its more formal composition, spread across 22 smaller paintings on lead and wood. Its hammer price reflects the particular collector value placed on Förg's formative pieces, which show the development of his conceptual approach to abstraction. This work emerges from a period when Förg was still influenced by his early grey monochrome paintings from the 1970s but had begun to incorporate the grid structures that would become a recurring element in his practice. During this period, Förg was exploring what he described as "formal purism" and maintaining a dialogue with both Modernist painting traditions and his own photographic work of architectural structures. Förg's early works were heavily influenced by American abstract painters like Barnett Newman and Frank Stella, as well as German artists such as Blinky Palermo and Imi Knoebel. The work’s provenance is impressively unique, having been gifted by Förg to a private collector in 1991, only appearing again at its 2020 sale.

This untitled 2007 large-scale oil and acrylic painting, measuring almost 3 square metres, sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2019. This painting exemplifies Förg's celebrated Tupfenbilder (Spot Paintings) series, created during the final phase of his artistic career between 2005 and 2010. It features his characteristic scattered, vibrant patches of colour against a neutral background, demonstrating his mature sporadic approach to composition and colour relationships. These works were partially influenced by photographs Förg saw of Francis Bacon's studio, which was covered in colourful paint blotches where Bacon had wiped his brushes. This method resonated with Förg, who frequently dabbed pigment to test colours, eventually elevating this preparatory process into the final artwork itself. The series marks a significant evolution from Förg's earlier, more structured Grid Paintings (Gitterbilder), transforming the previous lattice structures into rhythmic, gestural marks that appear to float across the large-scale canvas. By this point in his career, Förg had moved away from the formality of minimalism toward a more expressive approach, incorporating a brighter palette and more gestural brushwork.

This untitled oil painting from 2008 achieved this impressive result at Phillips London in March 2022. It was created just two years before a stroke in 2010 forced Förg to stop painting, and therefore represents the culmination of a lifetime of study and work. In Förg’s Spot Paintings, the brushstroke itself became the main protagonist, representing an ultimate return to expressive painting after decades of multidisciplinary experimentation. Director of the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon, Gilles Altieri, captured the essence of these works, describing Förg not as "an abstract painter" but as "a romantic expressionist, the language of forms laconically borrowed, the colours singing ponderously like a church bell." The substantial scale of the work creates an immersive viewing experience and references the tradition of Colour Field painting, particularly the work of American abstract painters like Mark Rothko, who was an important influence for Förg.