Willi Baumeister, Oskar Schlemmer and the architect and artist Franz Krause worked between 1937 and 1944 for the Wuppertal paint factory Dr. Kurt Herberts & Co. on investigations into painting techniques. They had lost their professorships early on in National Socialism and were additionally banned from painting and exhibiting in 1941. In the Wuppertal working group they tested the possibilities of surface design for lacquers and produced more than 160 test panels. They are regarded as unknown precursors of Informel.

The publication juxtaposes the historically significant experimental panels with a series of works that reveal interesting visual analogies and technical references. These include works by Max Ernst, Óscar Domínguez, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Mark Tobey, Jackson Pollock, Sigmar Polke, Andy Warhol, and Asian lacquer objects.