WORLD ART FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM

From Abstraction-Création in 1930 to the Global Language of Abstraction in 1960

A History in Eight Examples:

FRANCIS BOTT - GÜNTHER GUMPERT - ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER - BERNARD SCHULTZE - FRED THIELER - HANN TRIER - THEODOR WERNER - FRITZ WINTER

Kirchner's last drawing in the publication of 100 drawings by Will Grohmann in 1925, created at the end of 1924, perhaps even at the beginning of 1925, was the first indication of his transition to the "New Style". He further developed this style in the following years through a rigorous simplification of form and color, progressing towards increasing abstraction. This led to the creation of a distinctive and idiosyncratic variant of the general simultaneous European efforts towards a painting and sculpture of color fields and volumes, enclosed by endless loops. This approach was later referred to as "Abstraction-Création" in 1931 in Paris, with the establishment of a group bearing the same name. This group quickly included up to 400 international artists, ranging from the eldest, the Russian Wassily Kandinsky (*1866), to the youngest, the Japanese Taro Okamoto (*1911). This development was suddenly interrupted in 1937 and did not revive until 1948, when it expanded from being predominantly European to becoming a global phenomenon.

Our small exhibition at Art Cologne 2023 aims to narrate the evolving yet somehow consistently coherent history of mid-20th-century art through and despite the immense and violent disruptions of art ban, the Second World War, and the Shoah, using a selection of a few very different case studies.

In 1924/25, as we observed, a shift in the art of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) signaled the beginning of a new style that reached its highest consistency and purity between 1928 and 1933. While Kirchner always remained rooted in the figurative aspects of visual experience, as evident in "Spielende Badende” (Playing Bathers) from 1928, one can already recognize the interwoven fields of color enclosed by an endless contour, a hallmark of "Abstraction-Création." These elements reached their purest form in the two paintings from 1933-34, "Akte im Wald” (Nudes in the Forest), of which we are displaying the smaller version alongside drawings and two versions of the color woodcut.

In 1928/29, Fritz Winter (1905-1976) began to paint abstract works at the Bauhaus, in Berlin, and Davos. As the child of a miner, he initially learned the trade but quickly transitioned to the freedom of the culturally significant international vagabond lifestyle of the 1920s and, ultimately, into art. After rapidly absorbing the stylistic developments in art since 1880, he delved deeper into the recent evolution by studying at the Bauhaus from 1927 to 1930 with Kandinsky, Klee, and Schlemmer, as well as by collaborating with Kirchner in Davos from 1929 to 1932. A year before, he had already chosen abstraction, which he tirelessly explored until his death. After hopeful artistic beginnings, combined with teaching activities in Berlin, where he encountered the work and personality of the sculptor Naum Gabo, and in Halle from 1931-33, he and his life partner went into inner emigration in Allach near Munich in the same year. This he himself immediately regarded as his "exile" and painted "in stock", as he called it.

A deceptive hope emerged in 1936 when he applied for - and was granted - admission, albeit mistakenly, to the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture), though he had no intention of making any artistic concessions. However, in 1937, he received a permanent ban on painting. Fritz Winter continued to work but was conscripted into military service in August 1939. He had to endure the entire drama of World War II, with only a few breaks for leave and hospital stays due to injuries, until May 1945, when he was captured by the Russians and only released in May 1949. He immediately resumed his work, which attracted international attention as early as 1950 at the Venice Biennale. As a protagonist, he successfully participated in the subsequent heated "Abstraction Debate" in the following years and experienced the zenith of his success with numerous exhibitions and recognitions in the second half of the 1950s. This brief life description is exemplary for those of the following artists.

In 1930, Theodor Werner (1886-1969) also embraced abstraction, although he was almost a generation older than Fritz Winter. Living in Großsachsenheim near Stuttgart until then and more committed to Impressionist painting, he made the daring move to Paris in 1930 and became a member of the "Abstraction-Création" group. There, he met his wife, "Woty," who was also a painter and, most importantly, a weaver. Nearly his entire body of work was destroyed during the Second World War. However, we can display one of the major works from his Paris years, "Figuren” (Figures) from 1934. These figures are perhaps less "abstracted" from a visual experience, as in Kirchner's case, but rather creations of art in the same shapes and colors. From 1946 to 1959, Werner lived and worked in Berlin as a significant contributor to abstraction in Germany. From this period, we are showcasing the painting "Zeichen in Bewegung II” (Signs in Motion II) from 1953. From 1959, he lived in Munich until his death and left his estate to the Bavarian State Painting Collections.

Kirchner, Winter, and Werner were involved in the development of abstraction around 1930, leading to Abstraction-Création, in various direct and indirect ways. The other artists in our small exhibition belonged to the generation for whom - after the first aborted beginnings before the war - the first post-war years brought significant upheavals globally. The year 1948 became pivotal in the art world. The full extent of worldwide destruction, suffering, and death from the Second World War, which ended in atomic warfare in 1945, as well as the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by the warring powers, had in the meantime gradually become known. The hopes for peace initiated by the United Nations, founded in 1945, were crushed with the outbreak of the Cold War, marked by the Berlin Blockade in 1948. Against this backdrop, the representation of the human figure in art seemed no longer possible. The only way forward was the abstraction of form and color, which simultaneously offered the highest degree of artistic freedom, a coveted treasure sought after by all, especially artists.

In 1948, the fateful year for abstraction, Francis Bott (1904-1998) began his journey. After tumultuous decades spent in the anarchist-communist vagabond scene of 1920s-Europe in Germany, Vienna, Prague, and Paris, as well as in the French underground in the Pyrenees and back in Paris, Francis Picabia became his friend and mentor. As an independent freethinker, he did not align with any group, nor did he participate in cross-group exhibitions. However, in the 1950s, he gained representation in excellent galleries in France, England, Germany, and Switzerland.

1948, the fateful year for abstraction, also marked the beginning of Bernard Schultze's (1915-2005) artistic journey. Like other painters in the exhibited group, he had made an attempt at art studies in the 1930s before the Second World War. Unfortunately, these early works were destroyed during the war. After his military service from 1939 to 1945, he moved to Frankfurt and joined the Zimmergalerie Franck, the Quadriga group, where he met his wife Ursula. There, he became one of Germany's most significant exponents of Informel, and he lived and worked in Paris frequently. In 1968, he relocated to Cologne.

The post-war scene in Frankfurt, particularly in terms of freedom of expression, had a profound impact on Schultze and Ursula. In 1992, when the artists from East Germany were en globo admitted to "his" Academy of Arts, he left the academy in protest.

His website aptly begins with: "Bernard Schultze is one of the central protagonists of gestural-abstract art in the second half of the 20th century. His name and work are inseparably linked with the international success story of German Informel." We are showcasing some smaller works from the 1950s here. The gallery has a vast selection of Schultze's works.

1948, the fateful year for abstraction, also marked the beginning of Hann Trier's (1915-1999) artistic journey in Cologne. He was among the few survivors of his generation. He managed to complete his art studies from 1934 to 1938 at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art and graduated in Berlin in 1939, followed by military service until 1945. During his time in Berlin, where he worked as a technical draughtsman (as a soldier) from 1941 to 1944, he participated in the Great German Art Exhibitions in Munich in 1941 and 1943, a biographical uniqueness in our exhibition group. After the war, he lived in Bonn, co-founded the Neue Rheinische Sezession (New Rhenish Secession) in 1948, and became a member of the Munich group ZEN49 in 1951. He participated in documenta I, documenta II, and documenta III in Kassel. From 1957 to 1980, Trier served as a professor and later as the director of the Hochschule für bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts) in West Berlin. We are displaying an outstanding large expressive painting from the year 1960.

1948, the fateful year for abstraction, likely left its mark on the life and work of Fred Thieler (1916-1999) as well. After his military service and going into hiding due to his Jewish mother in Munich, he nevertheless found the courage to attend a private art school there. From 1946 to 1950, he studied under Karl Caspar at the Academy of Arts, painting his first abstract works. From 1951 to 1953, he lived and worked in Paris, becoming a member of the ZEN49 group in 1952.

He, too, was an outstanding exponent of Informel in a particularly expressive variant. The following small selection of his exhibition participations may illustrate his significance: 1958: 29th Venice Biennale; 1959: documenta II, Kassel; 1964: documenta III, Kassel; 1984:  an from here Düsseldorf. We are displaying some expressive examples from the 1950s and 1960s. More large and expressive works are available in our gallery.

1948, in the fateful year for abstraction, also marked the beginning of Günther Gumpert's (1919-2019) artistic journey. He began studying art in Krefeld and Wuppertal in 1937, but was interrupted by military service from 1939 to 1945. Self-taught, he continued to work in the first post-war years, in Wuppertal around the legendary Parnass Gallery and soon with a studio in Paris on Rue de Vaugirard (where he made friends with Francis Bott and Johnny Friedlaender). However, he lived and worked alternately in various places, including Spain, Morocco, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, and especially Rome, until he relocated to Washington in 1967.

Like Bott, he was a restless spirit burdened with terrible wartime memories, a wanderer between worlds, a European and a global citizen avant la lettre, always in search of a little peace and the opportunity to paint his poetic compositions in color and black and white.

This abstraction after 1948, which now seems so effortless, did not have it easy by no means. This freedom had to be fought for against the overpowering, conservative, and backward-looking ideologies that persisted beyond 1945. Battles were also waged within art academies, museums, and art criticism. It was not until 1959, at the "documenta II," that it could fully establish itself. Perhaps, as the last zeitgeist of art, it became the first global style. Its scope and spread can be seen in the five monumental volumes published by Maeght from 1971 to 1988, authored by Michel Ragon and Michel Seuphor (available here).

This abstraction, precisely in and through its "inarticulateness," is a crucial statement of art in its time: from 1930 to 1960 and beyond, against fascism and for freedom in peace.

Wolfgang Henze