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PostWar & Contemporary
3423*
FRITZWINTER(Altenbögge 1905 - 1976 Diessen)
Kleiner Garten. 1958.
Oil on canvas.
Signed and dated lower left: fwinter 58,
and titled, signed and dated on the
reverse: Kleiner Garten fWinter 58.
70 x 80 cm.
Provenance:
- Collection Hermann Kessler, Kassel;
acquired directly from the artist‘s studio
in the 1950s.
- By descent to the present owner, private
collection Northern Germany.
Exhibition:
- 1962 Kassel, Fritz Winter. Neue Bilder und
Bilder aus Kasseler Privatbesitz. Kasseler
Kunstverein, 21 January - 19 February
1962, no. 73.
- 1992/1993 Kassel, Fritz Winter 1905-
1976. Staatliche Museen Kassel, Neue
Galerie, 21 November 1992 - 31 January
1993, no. 174.
Literature: Lohberg, Gabriele: Fritz Winter.
Leben und Werk mit Werkverzeichnis der
Gemälde und einen Anhang der sonstigen
Techniken, Munich 1986, no. 2175.
“It has to do with the detachment from
external appearances and the importance
of the internal driving forces, which are
not immediately visible, and the internal
structure, which is not immediately tangib-
le”. (cit.: Ernst Kállai in: Hubertus Gassner.
NaumGabo – Fritz Winter 1930 – 1940,
Exhibition catalogue, Folkwang Essen
Museum 2003, p. 77)
With this description of the representa-
tion of nature in Abstract Art, Ernst Kállai
perfectly captures Fritz Winter’s artistic
intention. Art should reveal the internal
structures and processes of organisms
and objects – parallel to the latest scien-
tific discoveries about nature which broke
fresh ground in the early 20th century.
During the 1930s and 1940s, when the
Bauhaus pupil Fritz Winter grappled with
the artistic oeuvre of his teachers Paul
Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, as well as of
his mentor NaumGabo, a far-reaching,
revolutionary step is already evident in
the artistic representation of nature:
landscape portrayal at the beginning of
the 20th century was characterised by
a new image of nature as it “becomes
meaningful in a different manner. It loses
its clarity but gains unknown totality. It can
be located anywhere, (...) in us and outside
us”. (Gottfried Boehm: The new image of
nature. After the end of landscape painting
in: Manfred Smuda (editor), Landscape,
Frankfurt /M, 1986, p. 108)
Deeply convinced by this artistic concept,
Winter – reduced to the artistic means of
paint and form – worked at reproducing
nature. He layered, branched and intert-
wined individual lines, rectangles and sur-
faces into and over each other. As a foun-
ding member of the artist group “Zen 49”
in Munich, which included Willi Baumeister,
Rupprecht Geiger, Julius Bissier and Rolf
Cavael, he attempted to bring this concept
to wider recognition in the years following
the war, also in the light of its condemnati-
on as “degenerate art” during the period of
Nazi rule. This follow-up of the tradition of
classical abstraction of the pre-war years,
the further continuation and develop-
ment of artistic values and the spread and
mediation of abstraction as an equivalent
creative means of expression, constitute a
significant chapter in the development of
modern, abstract art in Germany. Winter’s
most urgent concern is to make reality, the
forces of nature and their constant change
allegorically apparent.
The bright picture, “Kleiner Garten (Small
garden)”, offered here is a wonderful
example of the visualisation of nature
and its inner structures, as Winter once
again succeeds in designing the indivi-
dual elements as a harmonious whole,
whilst developing an astonishing spatial
depth. An easing of the image structure,
visible in Winter’s art since the end of the
1950s, can be recognised here. The colour
range brightens, and the bright red and
green oblongs accentuate the almost
monochrome background. Energy and
excitement arise between the different
elements, creating a cheerful and happy
effect. Every semblance of formal gesture
has been dropped. Winter enables a free
and detached view into the blooming
garden; the dynamics of the brushstroke
becomes the vividness of nature.
CHF 25 000 / 35 000
(€ 23 150 / 32 410)