Drumbeat
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Dark brown-black forms of angular, interlocking, roughly figurative shapes are arranged against a thick white ground. The shapes suggest bodies, limbs, a drum, a hand, a tulip-like form, but nothing resolves into a clear image. Small accents of yellow-ochre and gray appear around the edges of the dark forms. The white paint is built up in heavy impasto, giving the surface a rough, plaster-like texture. This is from Baumeister's Africa series, which he began in 1942 after studying African sculpture in his personal collection. The angular, relief-like quality of the forms is deliberate — he was drawing on the carved surfaces and geometric patterning of West African art. He painted this while under an exhibition ban, working secretly in Stuttgart during the war.