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Fritz Winter (1905-1976),
Ohne Titel, 1936
Oil and wax on hand-made paper
25" x 19"
K19820067
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2000
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In 1933 he was still optimistic: “The darker it gets outside, the brighter the colours I use.” But by then Fritz Winter’s works had not been exhibited in public for some years. Nevertheless he continued to work, masquerading as a wood carver, until he was called up for military service in 1939, in the Drießener Haus on the Ammersee. There he created a large number of abstract compositions, almost unnoticed by the outside world.
Today Winter’s work is paradigmatic for both the qualities inherent in and the dangers faced by the generation of artists attempting to make a new start after 1945, who having exhausted the creative potential of Germany’s Hour Zero reestablished cultural links with the international avant-garde. Inspired by Klee, Kandinsky, and the nature myths of the “Blue Rider” group, Winter strove to translate into visible form the sounds of the soul’s inner vibrations. In 1931 Winter had started to paint still-lifes reminiscent of the organic structure of cells – which inspired by a visit to Naum Gabo he shortly afterwards augmented with sheaves of crystal and light. His later series “Triebkräfte der Erde” (Driving Forces of the Earth) deals with the representation of spirituality in painting. For in searching for the secrets behind the visible reality of nature “it is not a case of showing what is obviously there, but of revealing what is there as well. For much more is visible than we can see, and much more is audible than we can hear, and much more is there than we ourselves.”
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