Adolf Fleischmann

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Adolf Richard Fleischmann (born March 18, 1892 in Eßlingen am Neckar ; died January 28, 1968 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter . His late work is classified in the vicinity of constructivism . He is considered a forerunner of Op Art .

Life

Adolf Fleischmann was born as the third child of the businessman Wilhelm Adolf Fleischmann and his wife Paulina Maria in Eßlingen. After graduating from high school, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart from 1908 and switched to the Royal Art Academy in 1911 . Here he learned from Adolf Hölzel and Robert Poetzelberger, among others .

After a brief activity as an employed draftsman and painter at the Municipal Exhibition Office for Health Care , Stuttgart, as well as at the workshop for graphic arts under Paul Hahn , Fleischmann was drafted into military service in 1914. The following year he was so badly wounded on the Eastern Front that he was discharged from military service.

He temporarily designed book covers for the Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and for the JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung , both in Stuttgart.

Through the intercession of his half-sister Lotte Luise Volger, who was employed as a moulageuse at the Zurich Cantonal Hospital , he was also employed there in 1917. Fleischmann worked as a scientific draftsman and moulageur in Zurich until July 1928 (with interruptions) . Many of the moulages he made at the time have been preserved and can be viewed in the University Hospital Zurich .

In 1921 Fleischmann took part in the exhibition of the Munich “New Secession”. Here he was particularly inspired by Franz Marc and other expressionists . As a result, he painted strongly expressionist paintings.

Work stays in Italy , Spain , Switzerland , Paris , but also in Germany ( Berlin and Hamburg ) followed. Fleischmann's first extant abstract painting, not unaffected by Cubism, dates from 1925 . In 1928 he took part in the " jury-free " exhibitions in Stuttgart and Berlin and again in the "New Secession" in Munich.

From 1933 to 1936 he spent a long time in Mallorca and Paris. From 1936 to 1938 he traveled through Italy accompanied by his lover Bertha Loof and stayed mainly on Ischia . In July 1938 his son Dieter Loof was born, who died at the age of about four.

Since he now only painted abstractly, he avoided a possible conflict with the National Socialist rulers by moving to France. In Paris he joined the group l'Équipe . Thereby he met influential artists like Robert Delaunay and Albert Gleizes . There he supported the Resistance against the German occupation forces . Until the end of the war he lived in various places in southern France, especially in Graulhet , Tarn department . He was interned several times, for example in the " Les Milles " camp near Aix-en-Provence , from which he managed to escape in October 1940.

At the end of 1944, Adolf Fleischmann returned from hiding in the south of France to liberated Paris, where he found only the remains of his paintings, the work of many years, in his completely devastated studio. AF literally: "I had a nervous breakdown". With the help of his French friends, however, he was soon able to resume his artistic work and, until he left for the USA in 1952, took part in exhibitions in Paris. AF signed those works that were created in the early post-war period under the pressure of still violent anti-Germanism with the pseudonym Richard, his middle name. In the catalog of Realitéts Nouvelles No. 1, 1947, a picture by AF can be seen, here attributed to a painter Richard. AF did not use the pseudonym Richard in the USA.

At the end of the war and in the first post-war years, Fleischmann first had a short “geometric phase” in the sense of Concrete Art , which he soon gave up in favor of less strict motifs. He joined the Réalités nouvelles group and moved to Paris for a few years. He earned his living with designs for posters , magazine covers, wallpaper and fabrics (e.g. cloths for Dior ).

In 1948 he married Elly Abendstern, and in the same year he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Creuze in Paris.

In 1950 Fleischmann turned again to the geometric form, however less in the sense of Concrete Art, but more in the context of serial painting. This made him an early forerunner of Op Art . At the age of almost 60 he had found his own unmistakable style, which is characterized by rhythmically grouped narrow stripes that are integrated into narrow angles. In 1951 he exhibited his latest works in the Colette Allendy gallery .

Since he was offered better job opportunities in the USA , he moved to New York in 1952 . Here he lived both as an employed draftsman at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and as a freelance painter. Solo exhibitions and experiments with cardboard, cardboard and similar materials accompany his time in New York.

In 1958 he returned to Europe for a visit for almost three months; The nuanced change in the rigor of his geometric style in favor of loosened lines, stripes and figurations also fell during this period. As before, he remained committed to geometry, but his images became softer.

In 1962 he became seriously ill. In 1963 and 1964 he stayed in Stuttgart for 16 months. During this time the “Metamorphoses” pictures were created: The individual L-shapes are drawn together as blocks.

Fleischmann traveled back to New York in late 1964, where he suffered a severe stroke in 1965 . Due to better medical care, he finally returned to Stuttgart. In 1966 there was the Adolf Fleischmann anniversary exhibition at the Württembergischer Kunstverein , which made him famous at once and marked his final breakthrough in Germany. Over the next two years, despite a partial paralysis, he still created around twenty collages in relief .

Fleischmann died on January 28, 1968 in Stuttgart from the long-term effects of the stroke; he was buried in the Ebershaldenfriedhof in Esslingen am Neckar.

1973 saw the first major Adolf Fleischmann retrospectives in the Ulmer Museum and in the Westphalian State Museum in Münster ; In 1987 his works were exhibited in the Modern Gallery of the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken .

literature

  • Georg W. Költzsch (ed.): Adolf Fleischmann , catalog for the retrospective, Modern Gallery of the Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken 1987, ISBN 3-925303-37-5
  • Renate Deniz (ed.): "Father wanted - painter found ... .. Adolf R. Fleischmann", 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-028440-3
  • Alexander Klee: Fleischmann, Adolf Richard . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 41, Saur, Munich a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-598-22781-7 , p. 155.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Realitéts Nouvelles (No. 1, 1947, p. 72)
personal data
SURNAME Fleischmann, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fleischmann, Adolf Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Esslingen am Neckar
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1968
Place of death Stuttgart