David Reed’s painterly oeuvre has been the focus of countless solo shows, for example in 2001 at Kunstverein Hannover, in 2012 at Kunstmuseum Bonn and in 2016 at Pérez Art Museum, Miami. The presentation of his so-called «working drawings» at Kunst Museum Winterthur for the first time offers a concise overview of the drawings he produces that come at the beginning of his creative work, accompany it, document it and comment on it – creating a thought space in which painting is discussed in its potentiality.
«Glaze over Green?» we discern in fine pencil on graph paper covered in scribbles. Alongside exactly dated questions on painting technique and artistic decisions, there are comments on visits to studios, private notes and countless color tests. When viewing his Working Drawings it is as if we were witnessing Californian artist David Reed (born 1946) as he develops his paintings in his mind and then fleshes out the ideas.