The painter and graphic artist Fritz Winter (1905 - 1976), born in Altenbögge near Unna in 1905, is considered one of the most important abstract German painters of the second half of the 20th century. The former Bauhaus student went to the Dessau Reform School from 1927 to 1930 and was allowed to study painting with Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The period shortly before the National Socialists came to power represented a phase of upheaval, particularly in art. From November 7, 2021, the Angermuseum in Erfurt will be dedicating the retrospective exhibition Fritz Winter. Breakthrough to Color with loans from public and private collections.
Winter was always partial to the avant-garde, and so to this day he stands for the Generation Aufbruch in the young FRG - a thorn in the side of the National Socialists: in 1933 he was deprived of his teaching position at the Pedagogical Academy in Halle a. d. Saale, in 1937 his work was classified as »degenerate art«, his works were confiscated from public collections, and he was banned from painting. After the war, his compulsory service and imprisonment, Winter returns in 1949 and acts as co-founder of the artist group ZEN 49 in Munich. In 1955, participation in documenta I in Kassel followed, as well as a professorship at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, also in Kassel. In the GDR he is less present to the public, but there he is considered an insider tip for younger artists.
The occasion for the exhibition was not only the Bauhaus anniversary, but also the 70 years or so that have passed since Winter's first work was shown in 1950 in Hagen at the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum, as well as the 90 years or so since his first guest appearance in Erfurt. With Fritz Winter. Breakthrough to Color, the Angermuseum would now like to approach the artist's work once again. The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Fritz Winter House in Ahlen and the Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen, where it was previously shown in a modified form. In Erfurt, it can be visited until February 6, 2022.
