Fritz Winter. Paths to the documenta (1949-1955)

Fritz Winter. Paths to documenta (1949-1955)
An exhibition to mark the 70th anniversary of documenta and the 120th birthday of Fritz Winter

With the exhibition "Fritz Winter. Paths to documenta (1949-1955)", the Galerie Henze & Ketterer focuses on one of the most influential artistic personalities of German post-war modernism. To mark the 70th anniversary of the first documenta in 1955, the show, curated by Patrick Urwyler, takes a concentrated look at the decisive years that were to place Fritz Winter (1905-1976) at the forefront of contemporary art.

His painting “Composition in Blue and^Yellow”¹ was the central work painting gallery of the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel in 1955—a symbol of the newfound self-confidence of postwar German abstract art. Displayed directly across from Picasso’s “Girl Before a^Mirror”², Winter’s large-scale work became a symbol of West German painting’s successful integration into international art trends.

Two key pioneers of Fritz Winter's success were the poet, intellectual and life partner Dr. Margarete Schreiber-Rüffer (1890-1958) and the Bernese gallery owner Hedwig Marbach. Their work in the years after the war deserves special attention - not least because it has a direct impact on today's exhibition. But more on this later.

Three early works, which are shown at the beginning of the exhibition, point the way for Winter's artistic path. They represent the phase before the Second World War and are crucial for understanding his works of the 1950s. Looking back, Ingeborg Henze-Ketterer and Wolfgang Henze state: "In a painting from the 1950s, the signs, forms and colors of the early years around 1930 are just as present as those of later years are already discernible "³.

The exhibition opens with the 1930 painting^{“Untitled”4} —a work that, in terms of time, form, and content, directly references Winter’s artistic beginnings. His training at the Bauhaus in Dessau (1927–1930) was particularly formative for him, especially the free painting classes taught by Paul Klee. In Klee, who paid him close attention, Winter found his^{“master”⁵}. Alongside Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Oskar Schlemmer were also important influences, but it was Klee above all who provided him with key insights—including the idea of Genesis: the process of a work’s creation is of fundamental importance to Winter. “The act of painting is not understood as a means of illustrating specific ideas, but is, in its execution, the image itself. The painting is the static result of the act of painting […]^”⁶. Natural growth served as the model for artistic creation: an artist should work not after nature, but like nature.

Nature provides the foundation for Winter’s abstract work. This approach is also reflected in Kandinsky’s conviction that art is not about depicting external appearances, but rather about representing inner forces. Movement, energy, and rhythm are expressed through abstract elements such as line, point, plane, and color. An additional expressive element was introduced into Winter’s work by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner work an artist whom Winter visited several times in Switzerland during and after his time at the Bauhaus.

The exhibition continues Winter's journey with the painting "K III 100"⁷ from 1939. The thirties were behind him, with a dynamic development of his own abstract formal language and a budding career. However, the National Socialists' seizure of power and his retreat to the Ammersee put the brakes on this development. In 1937, Winter was defamed as a "degenerate artist" and banned from painting. The final turning point came in 1939 when he was called up for military service.

The work III 100” already foreshadows the series of small-format sheets created in 1944 during a leave from the front: “Triebkräfte der Erde” (“Driving Forces of the Earth”)—a group of about 50 drawings that are now regarded as key works of postwar German abstraction. The artist’s inner drive remained unbroken despite the war. This phase is often described as Winter’s “inner emigration”—a retreat into a spiritual engagement with nature and creation:

"Nothing can shake you more deeply than when you encounter a blossom, a leaf, so completely without possessions, so completely without being a civilian human being, and the greatness of creation is bestowed upon you. [...] The fact that war gives me this opportunity makes me endure it.^"8

"Im Unendlichen "⁹ is the title of the painting from 1949, the year that marked Winter's return from the war and Soviet captivity. "It is no longer the driving forces of the earth, but the elementary forces of our concept of nature, which has become indescribable, that urge us to create a pictorial form. "¹⁰ The painting belongs to the smaller work phase of energetic paintings, floating forms that appear like force fields and testify to a search for new forms of expression and design. These paintings are also an expression of unprecedented continuity. Within a very short space of time, Winter succeeded in seamlessly reconnecting with the national and international art world.

After 1949, it was Dr. Margarete^{Schreiber-Rüffer11} in particular who played a key role in ensuring that Winter’s work did not fall into oblivion work his absence—on the contrary: she promoted his reputation both at home and^abroad12. During the war and in the years that followed, she organized exhibitions in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Hanover, Cologne, Berlin, Munich, Paris, and Switzerland. She maintained contacts with art historians, gallery owners, and collectors—including Ottomar Domnick, an important patron of abstract art in Germany.

In 1947, Schreiber-Rüffer published the groundbreaking essay “On Fritz^{Winter”¹³} in the book *The Creative Forces in Abstract^{Painting*¹⁴} —a work that, together with the accompanying exhibition of abstract artists (including Winter), contributed significantly to the establishment of abstraction in Germany. Her dedication laid the foundation for Winter’s later career. From 1952 onward, she operated under the name Schreiber-Winter and remained, until her death in 1958, a shrewd and indispensable manager of Winter’s artistic endeavors.

Fritz Winter's career took off rapidly after 1949: In the same year, he co-founded the Zen 49 artists' group, and in 1950 he was awarded 2nd prize at the 25th Venice Biennale. This was followed by awards from the cities of Stuttgart and Darmstadt as well as from the Deutscher Künstlerbund in Berlin. In 1955 he was appointed to the Staatliche Werkakademie in Kassel.

The art market also responded to Winter's growing success - particularly through the Marbach Gallery in Bern. The Bernese gallery owner Hedwig Marbach remembers 1968:

"I saw the first originals at the Venice Biennale in 1950 [...] there were two paintings there [...] they spoke of a mature personality, a gifted artist who had gone through a good school. I decided to get to know this artist, perhaps to hire him for my gallery.^"15

On her first visit to Winter's studio in Dießen am Ammersee, she met Margarete Schreiber-Rüffer, who showed her a selection of newly created works - three of which she purchased immediately. Shortly afterwards, Marbach signed a contract with Winter and secured a right of first refusal: "For five years, I made the trip to the Ammersee every month to make my choice from the newly created works. "¹⁶ This not only led to a close collaboration, but also to the largest and probably most exclusive collection of Fritz Winter's works at the time, which is part of the provenance of key works in our current exhibition.

At the heart of the exhibition are twelve paintings from 1954/1955, all measuring 75 x 100 cm and all from Marbach's collection. The art historian Karlheinz Gabler assigns them to the work phase of the "notation paintings "¹⁷ - paintings that seem like notes turned into images. The term "notation" refers to the recording of fleeting processes such as music, movement or language - a fitting comparison in view of Winter's creative process.

The group of works is complemented by colored and black-and-white chalk and charcoal drawings, which can be read as studies or preliminary stages of these notations. They provide an insight into the artist's formal repertoire and reveal the diversity of his abstract language.

What all the works on display have in common is a consistent reduction to the simplest formal elements. They were created "alla prima", i.e. without subsequent corrections, in free handwriting. They reveal not only Winter's inexhaustible imagination, but also a psychographic quality - as if the experiences of half a decade are reflected in concentrated form and reduced to a common denominator^.18

A monumental expression of this "great denominator" reached its temporary climax in the work "Composition in front of blue and yellow". Presented as a mural, it served documenta initiator Arnold Bode as a highly symbolic backdrop for the ceremonial opening of documenta I on July 15, 1955 - a powerful setting for Werner Haftmann's programmatic exclamation: "Art of the 20th century!"

The exhibition with 12 paintings and a selection of color and black-and-white drawings opens up a unique access to Fritz Winter's cosmos - and thus to an artist who became a key figure of abstract post-war art in Germany in 1955.

Patrick Urwyler

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1 Fritz Winter, Composition in front of blue and yellow, 1955, oil on canvas, 381 × 615 cm (Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel)

2 Picasso, Girl in front of the mirror, 1932, oil on canvas, 162.3 x 130.2 cm (Museum of Modern Art, New York)

3 Fritz Winter, Works from the years 1929-1959, catalogue 50, Galerie Henze, Campione D'Italia, 1992, p. 5.

4 Fritz Winter, Untitled, 1930, oil on satinized cardboard, 50 x 65 cm, Lohberg 79.

5. cf. Lohberg, Gabriele, "Fritz Winter am Bauhaus in Dessau", in: Klee Winter Kirchner, 1927-1934, catalogue of the exhibition, Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster; Pinakothek

6. Lohberg, Gabriele, *Fritz Winter—Life and work: With a Catalog Raisonné of His Paintings*, Munich: Bruckmann, 1986, p. 78, pp. 25–42.

7 Fritz Winter, K III 101, 1939, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm, Lohberg 746.

8. from a letter by Fritz Winter (no year), in: Schreiber-Rüffer, Margarete, "Über Fritz Winter", in: Die schöpferischen Kräfte der abstrakten Malerei, Ein Zyklus, ed. by Ottomar Domnick, Bergen: Müller & Kiepenheur, 1947, pp.30-40.

9 Fritz Winter, Im Unendlichen, 1949, oil on laid paper, mounted on cardboard, 50 X 70 cm, Lohberg 865.

10 Gabler Karlheinz, "Fritz Winter, Werke aus den Jahren 1949 bis 1956, Einführung Karlheinz Gabler", in: catalogue Marbach Nr. 147-581, Bern: Marbach-Verlag, 1968, p.3.

11. cf. essay: Ossowski Christina, Muse - Manager - Lebensgefährtin. Margarete Schreiber-Rüffer and the painter Fritz Winter, in: Schwäbische Heimat, Magazin für Geschichte, Landeskultur, Naturschutz und Denkmalpflege, 2023/1, 42-48.

12. See a detailed description of Margarete Schreiber-Rüffer's activities in Ossowski 2023, p. 45 and Lohberg 1986, pp. 24-25.

13 Schreiber-Rüffer, Margarete, "Über Fritz Winter", in: Die schöpferischen Kräfte der abstrakten Malerei, Ein Zyklus, ed. by Ottomar Domnick, Bergen: Müller & Kiepenheur, 1947, pp.30-40.

14 Die schöpferischen Kräfte der abstrakten Malerei, Ein Zyklus, edited by Ottomar Domnick, Bergen: Müller & Kiepenheur, 1947.

15 Marbach Hedwig, "Wie ich zu Fritz Winter kam", in: catalogue Marbach No. 147-581, Bern: Marbach-Verlag, 1968, p.7.

16 Marbach 1968, p.7.

17. cf. phase table by Karlheinz Gabler, in: catalogue Marbach No. 147-581, Bern: Marbach-Verlag, 1968, p.6.

18 Marbach 1968, p.5.

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