Major Heinz Mack sculpture gifted to Harvard Art Museums

The Harvard Art Museums are pleased to announce the gift of “Light-Relief” (1960), a large-scale sculpture by internationally renowned artist Heinz Mack (b. 1931). The work — a generous gift made by the artist’s recently established Mack Foundation in Germany — has entered the collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, one of the Harvard Art Museums’ three constituent museums. The hand-embossed aluminum work is a cornerstone of Mack’s oeuvre and an example of his material experimentation during his involvement with Zero (active 1957–1966), an influential artist collective that originated in Düsseldorf with Mack and his co-founder, Otto Piene, before expanding across Europe to form a larger network.

“‘Light-Relief’ is one of Mack’s earliest experiments with light articulation. In this work, light itself becomes the medium by way of the artist’s manipulation of industrially fabricated foil to create a broad pattern of horizontal and angled striations,” said Lynette Roth, the Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum. “With ‘Light-Relief,’ we are now able to represent Mack’s key role in postwar German art as co-founder of Zero, as well as set the stage for his ongoing interest in new materials, light, and movement.”

The Mack Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and preservation of Heinz Mack’s art and archive. The foundation’s mission includes fostering public knowledge, awareness, and appreciation of Mack’s work through the development and preservation of the collection and archive, promotion of scholarly works and publications, and increased communication and cooperation with museums, collections, and comparable institutions.

The Busch-Reisinger Museum, dedicated to the study of all modes and periods of art from central and northern Europe, with an emphasis on German-speaking countries, is honored to work with the Mack Foundation on this project — the foundation’s first-ever public donation. “Light-Relief” joins other works by Mack in the museums’ collections, including “The Twelve Months” (1990), a portfolio of 12 screenprints that examine color in relation to each month of the year. In keeping with the Harvard Art Museums’ ongoing commitment to training and research, former graduate student intern Cheyanne Stunger contributed an initial analysis of “Light-Relief” in 2024.

Mack’s light-relief strengthens the museums’ holdings of works by German postwar artists, many of whom — like Zero artists Otto Piene and the recently deceased Günther Uecker — participated in an ongoing exchange with Mack. Zero was the first international art movement to emerge from Germany after the Bauhaus, the 20th century’s most influential school of art and design. The Harvard Art Museums hold one of the first and largest collections relating to the Bauhaus, giving works by Mack and other Zero artists a special resonance with key Bauhaus works in the museums, such as László Moholy-Nagy’s “Light Prop for an Electric Stage.” In addition, the Harvard Art Museums Archives holds some of the papers of the Howard Wise Gallery, a key venue for kinetic art in the United States, and where Mack presented a solo exhibition of similar light-reliefs and steles in 1966.

“Light Relief” will go on view alongside works by Piene, Uecker, and Charlotte Moorman in the museums’ Level 1 galleries in October. A free gallery talk about the Mack sculpture led by Lynette Roth will be held on Dec. 4, at 12:30 p.m. For details on this and other programs, see our calendar: harvardartmuseums.org/calendar.