THE NIGHT TOUCHES THE EARTH. FRITZ WINTER’S COSMOS OF THE 1930S AND 40S

How do contemporary witness accounts and artistic abstraction interact in times of dictatorship and war? Based on the newly accessible estate, a central phase of Fritz Winter’s work is retold on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death.

Trained by Klee and Kandinsky at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Winter was unable to find exhibition opportunities in Germany after 1933. From 1937 onwards, his art was considered degenerate. He experienced the Second World War as a soldier on the Eastern Front, primarily in Romania and Ukraine. In his largely non-representational art, which was oriented towards natural phenomena, he found powerful and moving forms of expression for the ‘fate of the times’. In increasing artistic isolation, he created cell and star constellations, crystallisations and expressive-surreal landscapes. He processed his experiences as a soldier in hundreds of drawings, in which he also dealt with the human extermination machinery and the destruction of habitats. In 1944, he created the famous group of works entitled ‘Triebkräfte der Erde’ (Driving Forces of the Earth) – a celebration of the elemental forces and laws of nature, which was interpreted as a metaphor for overcoming National Socialism.

Curated by Anna Rühl