Emil Schumacher is considered one of the leading proponents of German Informel. From 1950 on, Schumacher started to distance himself from representational motifs and to increasingly use colour as an independent pictorial factor. This development was primarily outlined by the French École de Paris, Tachisme and American Action Painting. From the late 1960s on, Schumacher experimented with Actionism. In his 'Hammer Pictures', he destroyed the painting support media and used the destruction as a pictorial element. In Schumacher's late works, reminiscences of representational art reappear. In 1998, the German Bundestag honoured him with a commission for a wall painting in the Berlin Reichstag building.