Hundertwasser's comment on the work

There are numerous watercolours I painted on paper with irregular edges. Since I started painting on solid grounds such as wood, wood-particle or plywood panels, I continued with this tradition of mine, with pieces of wood I found on the street in Paris. Now that I can afford to acquire the best and most expensive grounds at the most exclusive paint-supply shops, it is completely unsatisfactory to me, it even kills all creativity. So I often walk through the streets of Paris before dawn, before the refuse collection comes, and find the most fantastic painting grounds, sometimes sticking out of rubbish bins, sometimes lying right on the street. Jigsaw wood, plywood panels missing a corner or with frayed edges, discarded restaurant signs, switchboards such as this one, with the switches still on them, and much more. Paris at daybreak is a treasure chest. Finding all these things on the street, in the cold morning fog, when Paris is just waking up, puts me in an unspeakably enthusiastic mood. While taking it all home, I am already thinking about which pieces I will put together with which others, which often results in still more irregularity, of edges and thickness, and what I will paint on them. Back home they are cleaned, glued, nailed, primed, and the resulting panels are already works of art, in back as well as in front, almost too beautiful to be painted on. In this way the true preciousness of the painting ground comes about, on which one is simply duty-bound to paint something precious and beautiful. See also works 147, 169, 171, 174, 176, 725, 753, 754, 808, 809, 820, 839, 904, 928. (from: Hundertwasser 1928-2000, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 2, Taschen, Cologne, 2002, p. 626)