The twentieth anniversary of the Saatchi Gallery was celebrated in 2005 with "The Triumph of Painting", a landmark exhibition. The show presented painting as a fundamental root of artistic expression. It demonstrated how in an age of endless artistic possibilities painting remained a primary medium. The influences of photography, cinema and fashion were all reflected in the work of the new European painters. Especially influential was the work of a generation of German artists who had grown up in a post-war and divided nation.The book accompanying the exhibition, the first publication to make the disparate currents of the new painting coherent, was soon out of print. "The Triumph of Painting" has been expanded into an ongoing project and to mark the opening of the gallery's new and largest exhibition space in London two new definitive volumes are being published. The first, Germania, will present the German tradition beginning with the work of the dominant figures Martin Kippenberger and Jorg Immendorff and extended to the new generation, including radical work from the Leipzig school. The second volume will be devoted entirely to the new American abstract painters, few of whom appeared in the original "Triumph of Painting" book. "The Triumph of Painting" will continue with further volumes coinciding with future exhibitions to establish the most authoritative and comprehensive survey of new painting.
