Matthias Schaller discovered his first colour palette by accident in the studio of the American artist Cy Twombly. The spontaneous find eventually developed into a long-term project for the German photographer. Known for his “indirect portraits,” Schaller depicts one thing in other to showcase another. In the Vatican, for example, he did not photograph the cardinals themselves, but their desks, thus providing intimate insights into their thinking and work.  Using the same conceptual approach, he then began systematically photographing painters’ palettes, as silent witnesses to artistic practice.  

Schaller’s archive now comprises over 200 photos of the palettes used by 86 famous artists.  Some 300 years of art history are condensed in pastose form on the palettes’ surfaces. The search for lost time is told here in the medium of countless dried paint residues, smudged together to form miniature landscapes in the tiniest space – “ready-mades” with a striking effect all their own. By cutting the bottom of each palette at a slight diagonal after photographing it and then turning it by 90 degrees, Schaller detaches the tool from its physical link to the artist, reformulating it as a vertically transposed, independent work of art. 

The palettes Schaller has photographed were once in the hands of artists like Max Beckmann, Piet Mondrian, Salvador Dalì, and Pablo Picasso, not to mention well-known masters of contemporary art. They offer a captivatingly palpable insight into the aesthetics of production through the ages, highlighting art history by showing how it is made. Schaller has compiled a selection of these evocative works in his book Das Meisterstück (The Masterpiece), which is available for purchase at: https://matthiasschaller.org. 

A resident of Venice and New York, Matthias Schaller studied cultural anthropology at the University of Göttingen as well as in Siena and Hamburg and presented his graduate thesis on photographer Giorgio Sommer (Frankfurt 1834 - Naples 1914). Schaller's works have been exhibited at the following venues, amongst others: Venice Biennale, Giorgio Cini Foundation, Ca' Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art, Museum of Glass (Venice), Museum of Contemporary Art (Rio), Picasso Museum (Münster), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Wallraf-Richartz Museum (Cologne). He was awarded fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Rome (1992), from the Tokyo Wonder Site (2008 and 2008), and is a three-time winner of the German Photo Book Prize (2009, 2010 and 2020). His exhibition Controfacciata can be seen at Berggruen Arts & Culture in the palazzo Casa dei Tre Oci in Venice until 23 November 23 2025.