Fritz Winter broke away from the teachings of the Bauhaus early on, placed himself at the forefront of the abstract artists of his time with his visionary experiments and, as a painter of modernism, created celebrated key works of German post-war art.
(...) Continue readingFritz Winter - Studies at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky
Fritz Winter was born on 22nd September 1905 in what is now Bönen, Germany. As the eldest of eight children, he initially began training as an electrician while working at the Westfahlen colliery in Ahlen, where his father also worked as a miner. Fritz Winter also attended the Realgymnasium (secondary school), after which he aspired to study medicine. However, following his first attempts at art in 1924, he felt increasingly drawn to art, first studying the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker in detail, then viewing the art of Vincent van Gogh on a trip to the Netherlands. In 1927, his drawing teacher encouraged him to apply to the Staatliches Bauhaus in Dessau, which was ultimately accepted - Paul Klee personally signed his confirmation of acceptance. In his very first year, Winter received lessons from Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers. During this time, he earned his living by painting stove tiles.
First exhibition successes; increasing separation from the Bauhaus
Fritz Winter worked in Oskar Schlemmer's theatre workshop, took part in the ‘Young Bauhaus Painters’ exhibition in 1929 and received a scholarship from the city of Dessau through his teachers Klee and Kandinsky. Despite this, he felt increasingly dissatisfied at the Bauhaus, could not relate to the strict theory of form and sought his own path. One of these led him to Davos, where he met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, with whom he became close friends. When he met the sculptor Naum Gabo at a Bauhaus exhibition, he took a three-month leave of absence to familiarise himself with Constructivism in his studio. After his first solo exhibition at the Buchholz Gallery in Berlin, Winter was able to sell several paintings to various museums in Germany. In 1930, he left the Bauhaus with a favourable assessment from Paul Klee in the bag and, on the recommendation of his friend Hans-Friedrich Geist, moved to Halle an der Saale, where he took up a teaching position.
Ostracised by the ‘Third Reich’; co-founder of the ZEN 49 group
Fritz Winter lived with his partner Margarete Schreiber-Rüffer and their son in Munich from 1935, but soon had to contend with reprisals by the National Socialists. His work was discredited as ‘degenerate art’ and removed from public museums, while a strict ban on painting and exhibitions further aggravated the living situation of Winter and his family. His forced conscription for military service was followed by several years as a Soviet prisoner of war in Siberia, and in order not to jeopardise his release, he destroyed hundreds of drawings he had made during this time which could have been classified as ‘espionage material’. After returning to Munich, Fritz Winter became a founding member of the ZEN 49 artists' collective, where the contemporary art scene regularly gathered. Winter met Pierre Soulages and Hans Hartung in Paris, protested with Willy Baumeister and Ernst Wilhelm Nay against Karl Hofer and his criticism of abstract art, and took part in the Documenta in Kassel several times.
Fritz Winter died on 1st October 1976 in Herrsching am Ammersee.
Fritz Winter - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
