Wols

Self-portraits
Wols
Photographs
Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

Wols (born May 27, 1913 in Berlin ; † September 1, 1951 in Paris ), actually Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze - he formed the artist name from the initials Wol fgang S chulze - was a Franco-German photographer , painter and graphic artist . He is considered an important pioneer of Tachism and ancestor of Informel .

Wol's artistic work was created exclusively in France, where he emigrated in 1932. Inspired by Surrealism and the Bauhaus masters and without professional training, he created, after a short period as a photographer, first surrealistic and later informal drawings and paintings. In particular, the oil paintings of his later phase influenced French and German painters of the Informel. Jean-Paul Sartre and other French writers valued him as a book illustrator.

Life

Childhood and youth

Wolfgang Schulze was the son of the high Berlin government official Dr. jur. Alfred Schulze (1878–1929), who was appointed ministerial director and head of the state chancellery in the Saxon civil service in 1919, and his wife Eva, née Battmann (1886–1969). He grew up with his sister Elfriede (1910-2001) in a culturally interested parental home in Dresden , who maintained contact with Dresden artists such as Ludwig von Hofmann , Robert Sterl , Conrad Felixmüller and Otto Dix , thanks to whom the children began early with the visual arts Touch came. As a representative of the Ministry in the Academy Council, Alfred Schulze had considerable influence on the appointment of artists to the Dresden Academy; Otto Dix thanked him for his support by depicting him in the middle panel of his triptych Großstadt (mixed media on wood, 1927/28, Gallery of the City of Stuttgart ) as the band leader playing the saxophone. By Hugo Erfurth portrait photography exists Dr. Alfred Schulze (1927/28), a portrait in oil by Robert Sterl.

After only three years of primary school, Wolfgang Schulze switched to the humanistic state high school in Dresden-Neustadt in 1922 because of his excellent performance. The visit to the Great International Art Exhibition in Dresden in 1926 with works of contemporary modernism, with prominent representatives from Otto Dix and the Bauhaus masters, left a lasting impression on him. In the years that followed, he frequented the “Hirsche” club around his father's friend Fritz Bienert , who included Will Grohmann , Fritz Löffler , Gret Palucca and Otto Dix. Dix's depictions of war made a deep impression on the young man and shaped his later work. In addition, Wols was active in sports and music from 1927 until the death of his father (1929). In 1927 he received violin lessons from the concert master of the Dresden State Orchestra, Jan Dahmen . General music director Fritz Busch , a friend of the Schulze family, was so impressed with playing the violin that he offered the 14-year-old a position as concert master in an A-orchestra. In 1927 he moved to the humanistic grammar school at the holy cross .

The early death of the father caused serious disturbance. In 1930 he left school because he was at risk of being transferred and received private tuition in preparation for his Abitur. Despite good performance, the ministry denied him admission to the exam. He then worked for three months in a Mercedes workshop in Dresden and then in the prestigious photo studio of photographer Genja Jonas , known for taking portraits . After a brief visit to the Reimann School of Applied Arts in Berlin, he volunteered for a few months in 1932 at the Frobenius Institute for Ethnology in Frankfurt am Main , where he enthusiastically inventoried African musical instruments. As early as 1928 he had stayed for several weeks in the house of the ethnologist Leo Frobenius , a friend of the Schulze family, on Lake Maggiore . Frobenius wanted to keep him busy when he made up his Abitur and went to university, but he refused to accept this request.

emigration

On July 14, 1932, Schulze traveled to Paris with a recommendation from the Bauhaus artist and teacher László Moholy-Nagy . There he met the artists Amédée Ozenfant and Fernand Léger and in February 1933 met the Romanian fashion tailor Hélène Marguerite Dabija , known as Gréty, who was married to the surrealist poet Jacques Baron and, together with her sister "Gazelle", in Circle of Surrealists was wrong. She became Schulze's friend and introduced him to Hans Arp , Alexander Calder , Alberto Giacometti and many other personalities from the Parisian theater, literature and art scene. On July 14, 1933, Schulze traveled to Germany for the last time to settle inheritance matters. In view of the takeover of the Nazis he decided to live in Paris. He never returned to Germany.

Living in poor conditions in Paris without a work permit, he moved to Barcelona with Gréty in October 1933, and then to Mallorca . His refusal to follow the draft order for the German Reich Labor Service brought him constant difficulties with the Spanish and French authorities in the years to come. Without papers he was considered deserted and stateless , which led to several arrests. Schulze and Gréty moved from Mallorca to Ibiza in 1934 . Occasionally he worked as a taxi driver, tour guide and German teacher. Only a few of the photographs, drawings and watercolors made in Spain have survived. In Barcelona in 1935 he lost his beloved, precious violin. He then gave up playing the violin forever and from then on lived his love for music playing the banjo . He was probably deported from Spain at the end of 1935 and returned to France on adventurous routes across the snow-covered Pyrenees.

As a photographer in Paris

In 1936, with the help of Fernand Léger and Georges-Henri Rivière, he received a temporary residence permit with monthly reporting to the Paris police. Still without a work permit, Schulze earned his living with photography. In 1937 he received the official and lucrative commission to photographically document the Pavillon de l'Elégance et de la Parure at the Paris World Exhibition . In fact, he had sole rights. His pseudonym “Wols” also dates from this time - a telephone operator is said to have misunderstood his name when she accepted a telegram and passed it on in abbreviated form. From January 30 to February 18, 1937, his work was exhibited for the first time in the renowned Galérie de la Pléiade photo gallery under the title Photographies par Wolf Schulze .

Between 1937 and 1939 Wols worked successfully as a portrait photographer and, together with Gréty, maintained close friendly contacts with Parisian actors, writers and visual artists who allowed him to photograph them.

Internment and escape (1939–1945)

On September 3, 1939, immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War , Wols was arrested together with many other Germans in the Stade de Colombes in a Paris suburb and then taken to various French internment camps as an " undesirable foreigner " : initially to Neuvy-sur-Barangeon , then to Montargis and finally to Les Milles near Aix-en-Provence . Heinrich Maria Davringhausen , Ernst Engel , Max Ernst , Hans Bellmer , Lion Feuchtwanger , Henri Gowa , Walter Hasenclever , Franz Hessel , Alfred Kantorowicz , Max Lingner , Willy Maywald , Anton Räderscheidt , Max were interned at the same time as Wols in the Les Milles brickworks Raphael and Karl Wilczynski . As a privileged person, he camped with Max Ernst and Hans Bellmer in a tunnel in the ring furnace. After 14 months of internment, Gréty was able to supply him with alcohol and painting utensils. During the internment period, a large number of seemingly surreal drawings and watercolors were created that deal with camp life. Wols was released from Les Milles internment camp on October 29, 1940 , having recently married Gréty, who had been a French citizen since she married Jacques Baron. Through the marriage, Wols automatically received French citizenship. Art historian John Rewald acted as best man in the town hall of Aix-en-Provence .

From November 1940 to December 1942 the couple lived in extremely difficult circumstances in Cassis near Marseille and tried to emigrate to the USA with the help of the American Varian Fry and the Center Americain de Secours and the American writer Kay Boyle . Fry and Boyle received over a hundred watercolors from Wols, which were supposed to prove the quality of his work in America so that he could receive immigration status. The sheets were offered for sale in the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York to support the artist. After the demilitarized southern part of France was occupied by German troops, Wols and Gréty had to leave Cassis. The travel visas arrived too late. Many of Wols' works were lost while fleeing to Dieulefit near Montélimar . From 1943 until the end of the war in 1945, the mayor of Dieulefit gave the couple accommodation. During this time, a friendship developed between Wols and the writer Henri-Pierre Roché , who became one of the first collectors of Wols watercolors. Wols studied the writings of William Faulkner , Edgar Allan Poe , Lautréamont , Franz Kafka , Lao-Tse and Jean-Paul Sartre . In Dieulefit he created more watercolors, drawings and notes, Wols also took photos again, and finally he began to paint in oil on small formats. Increasing alcohol addiction impaired the artist's health.

Success as a painter

At the instigation of Henri-Pierre Roché, the Parisian art dealer René Drouin visited Wols in Dieulefit and acquired 40 watercolors and drawings for an exhibition in December 1945 in his gallery on Place Vendôme, where Wols' works were exhibited for the first time. The book accompanying the exhibition (the so-called petit livre noir ) with 14 reproductions is the first publication about Wols. The mostly small-format works were indirectly lit in boxes. A few days before the exhibition opened, Gréty and Wols had returned to Paris, but did not take part in it. In a dispute with the gallery owner, shortly before the opening, Wols demanded that the exhibition not take place. The exhibition failed to achieve financial success, but not to receive recognition from critics.

Wols and Gréty returned to Paris in 1945 completely penniless and temporarily stayed in the same hotels in small, frequently changing hotels in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés district , where Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir also lived. Wols became friends with Sartre, whom he met regularly and who also paid Wols' hotel bill for two years. Wols illustrated his book Visages for Sartre . Simone de Beauvoir remembers that he drank “a liter of Marc a day ” and that she had never seen him sober; at a meeting with him he appeared to her "ragged, unshaven and [...] like a clochard".

Equipped by Drouin with canvases and oil paint, Wols created over 40 oil paintings in a short time from 1946. On May 23, 1947, an exhibition of these pictures was opened at Drouin. The show shocked the Parisian audience and made the artist known on the scene. He took part in the overview exhibitions Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and L'Imaginaire (with works by Hans Arp , Victor Brauner , Camille Bryen , Hans Hartung , Georges Mathieu , Jean-Paul Riopelle , Raoul Ubac ) and became friends with Jean Paulhan and the Painter Mathieu. In addition to illustrations of texts by the writers Jean Paulhan, Jean-Paul Sartre , Franz Kafka and Antonin Artaud , an independent graphic work was created.

In the years from 1948 to 1950, despite a phase of serious health problems, the temporary separation from Gréty and constant changes of residence, further exhibitions in Paris , Milan and New York , which focus on the works of Wols created after 1945. A fixed contract for two years with the gallery owner Pierre Loeb secured Wols' livelihood. In 1951 his health deteriorated again. A lung infection , cirrhosis of the liver due to severe alcohol dependence and jaundice forced wolf to a two-month hospital stay and subsequent rehab. In the summer of 1951 he recovered during a stay in Champigny-sur-Marne and was cared for by Gréty. With fresh energy, Wols worked on new pictures and watercolors, his last work.

death

On the night of August 24th to 25th, 1951, Wols contracted food poisoning with a high fever from eating spoiled meat , which was initially diagnosed as appendicitis and was not treated. Badly attacked, he was rushed to a Paris hospital too late. With death in mind, he had Gréty take him to the luxurious Hotel de Montalembert on August 31, 1951, where he died the next morning. Wols was buried on September 4, 1951 in the columbarium of the Père Lachaise cemetery .

plant

Objets flottants (la banane)
Wols , 1932
Oil on canvas
46 × 38 cm
Privately owned Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

The art historian and later art dealer Ewald Rathke puts Wols's work at 80 oil paintings, 30 of which are in the museum's possession, and 1,000 watercolors and drawings, of which little more than 10 percent are accessible in public collections. On the occasion of a Wols exhibition at the Center Pompidou in spring 2020, the author and journalist Bettina Wohlfahrt measures the work at 85 paintings, 910 watercolors and 170 drawings.

In his book Theories of Contemporary Painting, the artist and author Jürgen Claus asked about “the value of annihilation, eradication, and abolition in the painting of Wols. In contrast to Dada's destruction, "says Claus," his abolition was integrated into painting, in contrast to Surrealism from which he developed, the destruction did not remain in the thematic ... but began in the painterly means that were under his Hands got into a crisis in which he classified his visions. ”( Theories of contemporary painting , rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie, vol. 182, Reinbek / Hamburg 1963, p. 109.)

Rolf Wedewer anchors Wols' work at the "intersection of Surrealism and Informel". This applies to both his photographic and painterly work. Although his earliest oil painting (Objets flottants) can be dated back to 1932, photography was at the beginning of his artistic career.

Wols' almost twenty years of artistic creation can be roughly divided into three phases: He began with photography in the Parisian years from 1932 and worked as a professional photographer since 1937 at the latest. During his internment from 1939 on, he switched to drawings and watercolors, which formed the majority of his works even after his release until the end of the war. From 1945 the artistic emphasis shifted to oil paintings. In addition, he created numerous etchings for book illustrations.

Photographs (1932–1941)

After Wols traveled to Paris in autumn 1932 with letters of recommendation from László Moholy-Nagy , he received his first photographic commissions. He worked as a freelance photographer until he was interned. His photos, first exhibited in the Galerie de la Pléiade in 1937 (Photographies par Wolf Schulze) , won him the commission of the Association of French Fashion Designers to photograph the presentation in the Pavillon d'elegance at the World's Fair. Almost all publications about the pavilion, which was considered the showcase of the French fashion industry, were provided with his photographs. His unusual spatial and fashion photographs were sold as postcards and printed in many international fashion magazines. He photographed the still unclothed fashion dolls, torsos without arms, arms tucked into boxes. With an ingenious play of light and shadow, he transported the scenery into the fantastic. Ewald Rathke writes: “He's unconsciously heading for surrealism.” During this time he made unusual black and white photos of Roger Blin , Max Ernst , Jacques Prévert and Jacqueline Laurent , of the young singer Mouloudji , of Rafael Alberti , of the Painter Sabine Hettner , the dancer Nina Weichberger and the actresses Sonia Mossé, Nicole Boubant and Susanne Magisson-Borel. He also made a number of self-portraits and photographed cityscapes and still lifes.

Drawings and watercolors (1939–1945)

Vascello all'ancora (The anchoring ship)
Wols , around 1944/45
India ink and watercolor on light paper
13.5 × 13.5 cm
Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection, Bremen Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

In the internment camps between 1939 and 1940 he only draws and watercolors. Between 1940/41 and 1945 in Dieulefit in the south of France he also draws, watercolors and takes photos. His frequent subjects include ships, harbors, circuses, barriers, and surrealistic mythical creatures. Finely drawn lines of ink and spider-like scratch marks naturally result in fantastic, fantastic webs. The informal approaches can be dated from 1940, which lead through the dissolution and opening of the “closed objectivity from shadowy to completely non-objective and ambiguous forms”. What can be observed is an "autonomization of the line from a determinable motif". Wols is now probably starting out with his first small-format paintings in oil on a trial basis. In this section, which is important for the later work, he changes his approach, which is also reflected in a large number of notes and aphorisms.

Oil paintings (1946/47 and 1949–1951)

Manhattan
Wols , 1948/40
Oil and grattage on canvas
146 × 97.5 cm
The Menil Collection, Houston, USA Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

Between 1945 and 1951 the focus was entirely on oil painting, whereby two phases can again be distinguished: 1946/1947 and 1949–1951. He also created watercolors and etchings, photography no longer played a role after 1945. In the 104 oil paintings he has survived (88 of them on canvas and 16 on paper) it becomes clear that Wols experimented with unusual anti-academic techniques. He let the diluted paint coagulate in several layers, flow and run on the tilted canvas, so that a dense network of traces emerged, criss-crossed by furrows and ditches that were scratched into the paint with a brush handle, fork or knife. Sometimes the artist soaked the canvas with colored terpene before painting. His oil paintings are characterized by a compression in the center of the picture and are reminiscent of faces that are marked by injury, suffering and aging. As far as is known, he never used preliminary drawings and drafts. Werner Haftmann speaks of "psychological automatism". Wols himself never used titles; the titles under which many of his pictures have become known come from his wife, from his friend Henri-Pierre Roché or from art dealers. An example of this is the painting Manhattan (1948/49, The Menil Collection ), which probably owes its title to the association with the shape and floor plan of the center of New York.

Wols' drawings, watercolors and paintings were first influenced by surrealism and show playful fantasy worlds; they developed partly under the influence of alcohol and other drugs . Later he was more interested in the combination of heavy brushstrokes with a painting structure tending towards relief .

On the other hand, delicate watercolors, pen drawings and book illustrations round off the work in a lyrically playful way.

Book illustrations

As the first illustration for a literary text, Wols produced a pen drawing for Alain Borne's book Brefs (abbreviation) in 1944 , before becoming a sought-after book illustrator around 1947. He came to etching through the book illustrations, which represented a source of income for Wols that should not be underestimated . He illustrated a total of ten books with 29 drypoint etchings, and more books were planned. He illustrated texts by Sartre (2 books), René de Solier , Jean Paulhan , Antonin Artaud and Franz Kafka and contributed an illustration to the artist book Poésie de mots inconnus (Paris 1949), a joint effort by renowned visual artists and writers. As Christiane Lukatis writes, Wols has dealt intensively with the texts for which he created etchings. It was important to him not to simply illustrate the text, but to create a pictorial counterpart that was associated with the text, but without being tied to a clear perspective.

Fakes

In his four-volume catalog raisonné of Wols' works on paper, Philipp Gutbrod recorded 455 forgeries in addition to 843 genuine and 222 dubious works.

reception

The French colleague Georges Mathieu wrote about his visit to the exhibition of Wols paintings in the Drouin Gallery in 1947:

“Forty masterpieces! Each more crushing, disturbing, bloody than the other: an event, without doubt the most important since the works of van Gogh. I came out of this exhibition very shaken. Wols had destroyed everything. After Wols everything had to be redone ... In the first attempt, Wols used the language of our time in a brilliant, irrefutable and irrefutable way and brought it to the highest intensity. And what was more, these means of expression were experienced. Wols painted these 40 canvases with his drama, with his blood. It was about 40 monuments from the crucifixion of a person who was the embodiment of a purity, sensitivity and wisdom that did not only honor the West, but all of creation itself. "

The Kassel art historian Dorothee Gerkens investigated the question of what significance Wols had on German Informel painters after 1945 and was able to point out different influences on Bernard Schultze , Emil Schumacher , Otto Greis and Gerhard Hoehme . The artists mentioned, mostly without having met Wols personally , first noticed his informal works either in Paris exhibitions or in the early German exhibitions in Cologne ( Galerie Der Spiegel , 1955) or Kassel ( documenta , 1955, 1959) and were all profound impressed, sometimes overwhelmed.

Early interpreters such as Werner Haftmann and Jean-Paul Sartre brought Wols works closer to Paul Klee's paintings. Sartre said: “Klee is an angel, Wols is a poor devil. The one creates or recreates the wonders of this world, the other experiences the wonderful horror in them. ”Meanwhile, he himself saw what separates him from Klee: he had“ driven the dream and the thought to the most amazing beauty ”, while he was driving“ his gymnastics on the sloping slope ”. The art historian Patrycja de Bieberstein Ilgner can, however, prove a direct reference to Klee's Twitter machine (1922, Museum of Modern Art , New York) in two early works by Wols , namely in the watercolor La panoplie fantastique (private collection) created around 1937/39 and in an untitled pen and ink drawing from 1938/40 in the possession of the Karin and Uwe Hollweg collection .

Werner Haftmann romanticized Wols in the sense of the “Poètes maudits”, who assumed the fate of “persecution, hardship, homelessness and time and again flight” and “recorded what happened to him: not the factual, but the images that emerged from the Wound that struck life ". Ewald Rathke contrasts this with the portrait of a precise, highly conscious poetic spirit. For the American art historian and multiple museum director Tom L. Freudenheim , the French Jean Fautrier appears to be the closest thing to Wols' spirit.

Wols' works were posthumously shown at the documenta (1955), documenta II (1959) and documenta III (1964) as well as in an extensive overview of works at the XXIX. Venice Biennale (1958). At documenta 1955 he was represented with four exhibits, 1959 with forty-one and 1964 with nine paintings and five pen drawings. The greatest response among art critics and in the media was his works at documenta II . The first German exhibition was presented by the Cologne gallery Der Spiegel from April 23 to May 20, 1955. Wols' first retrospective was organized by the director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein , Ewald Radtke, in November 1965. In his introductory text On the Art of Wols , he characterized it Work as “non-representational fantasy”, which was still influenced by Surrealism in its early work.

Works (selection)

• Objets flottants (la banane), 1932, oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm (ill.). FAZ , June 12, 2011, accessed on July 29, 2020 . 
• Mademoiselle Docteur, around 1937/39, India ink and watercolor laid down on structured paper, 30.3 × 22.5 cm, Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection , Bremen (ill.)
• Elephant and Boats, around 1940/41, India ink and watercolor on paper, Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection, Bremen (ill.)
• Un voyage étrange (A strange journey), around 1943, pen and ink, watercolor, opaque white on light Ingres paper, 16 × 18.7 cm, Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection, Bremen
• Tête abimée (battered head), around 1944, pen in black, watercolor and opaque white on tinted Ingres, 17 × 12.2 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut , Frankfurt am Main
• Vascello all'ancora (The Anchored Ship), around 1944/45, pen and ink and watercolor on light paper, 13.5 × 13.5 cm, Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection, Bremen
• La ville rosé (The Pink City), around 1945/46, India ink, watercolor, opaque white. Gouache, grattage and ink brush on paper, 18.5 × 25 cm, private collection
• Composition en rouge (Red Composition), around 1946, oil and grattage on canvas, 92 × 73 cm, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
• Composition, around 1946, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 53.8 × 65.5 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen , Munich, Pinakothek der Moderne
• Oui, oui, oui (Ja, ja, ja), 1946/47, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 80.6 × 64.2 cm, The Menil Collection , Houston (ill.)
• L'aile de papillon (The Butterfly Wing ), around 1946/47, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 55 × 46 cm, Center Pompidou , Paris (ill.)
• It's All Over, 1946/47, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 81.3 × 81.3 cm, The Menil Collection, Houston ( ill. )
• Composition, around 1947, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 81 × 64.7 cm, Hamburger Kunsthalle
• Regarde hallucinée (hallucinative observation), around 1947, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 81 × 81 cm, Museum Folkwang , Essen
• Composition jaune (yellow composition), 1947, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 73 × 92 cm, State Museums in Berlin , Neue Nationalgalerie (Fig.)
• La tapisserie (The tapestry), around 1947, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 54 × 73 cm, Museum Ludwig , Cologne
• Manhattan, 1948/49, oil and grattage on canvas, 146 × 97.5 cm, The Menil Collection, Houston
• L'oiseau (The Voge), 1949, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 92.1 × 65.1 cm, The Menil Collection, Houston (fig.)
• Poisson (Fish), 1949, oil and grattage on canvas, 72.9 × 49.8 cm, The Menil Collection, Houston
• La turquoise (The Turk), 1949, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 61 × 50.5 cm, Center Pompidou, Paris
• Composition aubergine (aubergine-colored composition), around 1949, oil and grattage on canvas, 92 × 73 cm, Galerie Neue Meister , Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
• Le fantome bleu (The Blue Phantom), 1951, oil, grattage, tube and fingerprints on canvas, 73 × 60 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (ill.)
• Le bateau ivre (The Drunk Ship), 1951, oil, grattage, tube prints on canvas, 92 × 73 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich
• Composition Champigny, 1951, oil, grattage, tube, finger and cloth prints on canvas, 72 × 59 cm, Ströher Collection , Darmstadt
• L'inachevèe (The Unfinished), oil on canvas, 130 130 × 97 cm, Galerie Karsten Greve , St. Moritz

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1937: Photographies by Wolf Schulze , Galerie de la Pléiade, Paris
• 1945: Wols - watercolors and drawings, Galerie René Drouin, Paris (exhibition catalog)
• 1947: Wols - 40 oil paintings, Galerie René Drouin, Paris (exhibition catalog)
• 1951: Wols - First American Exhibition , Hugo Gallery, New York
• 1955: Wols. Drawings, watercolors, pictures , Der Spiegel gallery , Cologne. (First German solo exhibition with exhibition catalog)
• 1965/1966: Wols - paintings - watercolors - drawings - photos , Frankfurter Kunstverein , Frankfurt am Main (exhibition catalog)
• 1973: Wols 1913-1951. Paintings, watercolors, drawings. Nationalgalerie (Berlin) (exhibition catalog)
• 1989/1990: Wols. Pictures, watercolors, drawings, photographs, prints , Kunsthaus Zurich and the art collection of North Rhine-Westphalia (exhibition catalog)
• 2001: Wols - "The size of the palm is sacred" - watercolors, drawings and prints 1936–1949. Exhibition on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the artist's death. The Karin and Uwe Hollweg Collection, Kunsthalle Bremen .
• 2001: Wols - Photographs, Etchings , Gallery / Edition Stella A., Berlin
• 2010: Wrong , Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, group exhibition curated by Katharina Fritsch and Gertrud Peters.
• 2012: Circus Wols. Curator: Olaf Metzel , Weserburg Museum for Modern Art , Bremen
• 2013: Wols Photograph. The saved look, Kupferstichkabinett Dresden
• 2013: Wols. The retrospective. (Exhibition catalog) Kunsthalle Bremen The first major exhibition in 25 years (subsequently Houston, USA Menil Collection )
• 2013/14: Wols - “the great mystery” , Museum Wiesbaden , 2014 Museum Liner Appenzell
• 2014: Wols - Awakening after 1945 , Neue Galerie , Kassel
• 2014: Wols Photograph. The saved look , Martin-Gropius-Bau , Berlin
• 2020: Wols. Histoires naturelles . Center Pompidou , Paris

literature

Writings by Wols, exhibition catalogs

• Wols . Alexandre Jolas Gallery, New York, Paris Geneve. 1953. Texts: JP Sartre.
• From a conversation Ione Robinsons had with Wols (Paris 1947) , in: Jürgen Claus, Theories of contemporary painting, rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie, vol. 182, Reinbek / Hamburg 1963, p. 107 ff .; New edition: Jürgen Claus, painting as an action, Ullstein materials, vol. 35247, Frankfurt / M., P. 107 ff.
• Wols. Records. Watercolors, aphorisms, drawings . Edited and introduced by Werner Haftmann with contributions from Jean-Paul Sartre and Henri-Pierre Roché. Cologne 1963.
• Wols - Cités et Navires . Michel Couturier et Cie, Paris, 1964.
• Wols - paintings - watercolors - drawings - photos . Exhibition catalog with an introduction by Ewald Rathke: Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main 1965
• Wols . Galerie Räber, Lucerne, 1967. Texts: Helga Rensing, Grety Wols.
• Wols . Musee des Beaux-Arts Nancy, 1970. Text: S. Guillaume.
• Wols 1913-1951. Paintings watercolors drawings . Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, 1973. Ed. Werner Haftmann.
• Wols. Watercolor printmaking. 1913-1951 . Exhibition catalog, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel 1985.
• Wols: Wols sa vie . Goethe-Institut Paris, 1986. Edited by Gerhard Götze.
• Wols. Drawings and Water-Colors. Drawings and watercolors. Catalog for the exhibition at the Goethe-Institut London: May 17 - June 29, 1985; as well as in the Graphisches Kabinett Werner, Bremen: October 4th - November 9th 1985. Exhibition catalog ed. by Ewald Rathke.
• Aphorismes de Wols , Amiens 1989, ISBN 978-3-8296-0439-0 .
• Wols. Pictures, watercolors, drawings, photographs, prints . Catalog for the exhibition in the Kunsthaus Zurich: November 24, 1989 to February 11, 1990 and in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf: March 31 - May 27, 1990, Zurich and Düsseldorf 1989.
• Wols. Watercolors 1937–1951 . ed. by Tilman Osterwold and Thomas Knubben. Catalog of the Städtische Galerie Altes Theater Ravensburg September 21 - November 16, 1997, Ostfildern-Ruit 1997.
• Wols . Gallery Karsten Greve , Cologne 1998.
• Wols. Photographs, watercolors, prints . Institute for Foreign Relations, Ostfildern 1999 (changed edition).
• Wols. Watercolors, drawings, notes from the property of Marc Johannes . ed. by Claus Mewes. Catalog for the exhibition at the Kunsthaus Hamburg, November 10, 2000 to January 21, 2001; Villa Merkel, May 20 - June 17, 2001; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett, July 11th - September 28th 2001, Hamburg 2000 (plus booklet).
• "The measure of the palm is sacred". Wols - watercolors, drawings and prints 1936–1949. An exhibition on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of death. The Karin Hollweg Collection, Kunsthalle Bremen 2001.
• Wols. Seven self-portraits. Edition Griffelkunst 2001. Author: Claus Mewes. Hamburg 2001.
• Wols. Composition. By Anabelle Görgen with a report on the restoration of the painting by Barbara Sommermeyer . ed. by Uwe M. Schneede and made possible by the friends of the Kunsthalle e. V. on the occasion of the exhibition Im Blickfeld: Wols. Composition, in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, February 15 - May 12, 2002, Hamburg 2002.
• Wols. The graphic work . Edited by Ralf Busch . Writings of the Griffelkunst-Vereinigung Hamburg. Edited by Harald Rüggeberg, Hamburg 2004.
• Wols. Change of look. Portraits of women from the 1930s . Edition Griffelkunst 2005. Author: Claus Mewes. Hamburg 2005.
• Wols: The Aphorisms - The literary work of Wols. Published by Hans-Joachim Petersen. Schirmer & Mosel, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-8296-0439-4 (French: ISBN 2-08-124455-1 ).
• Wols. The retrospective . Exhibition catalog, ed. by Kunsthalle Bremen and The Menil Collection, Houston. With contributions by Patrycja de Bieberstein Ilgner, Toby Kamps, Ewald Rathke, Katy Siegel. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7774-2049-3 .
• Wols. Departure after 1945 . Exhibition catalog, ed. by Museum Landscape Hessen Kassel, Bernd Küster. With contributions by Dorothee Gerkens, Christiane Lukatis, Mechthild Haas, Harald Kimpel, Philipp Gutbrod, Ewald Rathke. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7319-0019-1 .

Literature on Wols

• Jürgen Claus: "Wols: Ordering visions in a crisis." In: Jürgen Claus, theories of contemporary painting, rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie, vol. 182, Reinbek / Hamburg 1963, p. 107 ff .; New edition: Jürgen Claus, painting as an action, Ullstein materials, vol. 35247, Frankfurt / M., P. 107 ff.
• Claire van Damme: Art as Catharsis en Psychogenese. Het exstreem subjectivist kunstscheppen van de Duitse surrealistische en informele kunstenaar Wols 1913–1951 . Ghent 1985.
• Hans Eichhorn: Circus Wols. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 2000.
• Sabine Fastert: "Klee is an angel, Wols is a poor devil". Informal painting and its readings. In: Urte Krass (Ed.): What makes art? From the workshop of art history. Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2009, pp. 207–230.
• Laszlo Glozer: Wols Photograph . Munich 1978.
• Philipp Gutbrod: Wols (1913–1951) - The works on paper (annotated, critical catalog raisonné). 4 volumes, dissertation, Heidelberg 2003.
• Philipp Gutbrod: "Wols remained unknown in Germany". Phase shift of a Franco-German reception. In: Martin Schieder and Isabelle Ewig (eds.): Thrown into freedom. Positions on Franco-German art history after 1945. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2006, pp. 345–366.
• Harald Kimpel : "The self-perceived vulnerability of human existence". Wols, the documenta and the "cosmic jargon" . In: Wols. Departure after 1945. Michael Imhof Verlag Petersberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7319-0019-1 , pp. 74–85 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, Neue Galerie, March 14 to June 15, 2014)
• Hans Joachim Petersen: Wols. Life and work in the mirror of changed perception . (Phil. Diss. Munich 1992) Frankfurt am Main a. a., 1994.
• Ione Robinson: Hours with Wols - 1947 . Translated from the French with an afterword by Dino Heicker. Bern / Vienna 2013. ISBN 978-3-905799-23-1
• Karin Sagner-Düchting: “The object expands beyond its appearance through knowledge of its interior.” Wols and Paul Klee in dialogue. In: Heinz Althöfer (Ed.): Informel. Encounter and change. Museum am Ostwall Dortmund 2002, pp. 46–56.
• Birgit Schwarz: Dix and Wols: On the biography of an artistic revolution, in: Yearbook of the State Art Collections in Baden-Württemberg 30 1993, pp. 104–124.
• Franz-Joachim Verspohl : "The concrete things are in second place." Wols and Sartre. In: IDEA. Yearbook of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Volume 6, 1987, pp. 109-139.
• Franz-Joachim Verspohl: Inner Dialogue. Pollock and Wols' method of confronting the viewer with himself . in: Kunstforum international vol. 111, January / February 1991, p. 134 ff.
• Rolf Wedewer : The painting of the Informel. Loss of the world and self-assertion. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, Chapter XI: Wols, pp. 181–197.
• Barbara Wucherer: A phenomenon of stumbling. Wols' Portraits 1932–1951 . Berlin 1999.
• Christoph surcharge: wonderful horror. Christoph surcharge about Wols, to whom the Informel owes its initial spark , in: Kunstzeitung, edition 201, May 2013, p. 17.

Web links

Wikiquote: Wols  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Wols in the catalog of the German National Library
• Materials by and about Wols in the documenta archive
• Short biography and bibliography (IFA database)
• Wikiart: Wols

Footnotes

1. ↑ Alfred Otto Wolfgang's youth is well documented in an unpublished diary of his mother Eva Schulze (today in the Kupferstichkabinett Dresden , estate of Elfriede Schulze-Battmann) and publications by his sister.
2. ↑ Birgit Schwarz: Otto Dix. Big city. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1993, pp. 53–58.
3. ↑ Birgit Schwarz: Dix and Wols. On the biography of an artistic revolution. In: Yearbook of the State Art Collections in Baden-Württemberg 30, 1993, pp. 104–124.
4. ↑ “The actual reasons are not known. Presumably he had not completed the prescribed number of school years. ”According to Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 275.
5. ↑ At the request of the mother, the well-known photographer Hugo Erfurth confirmed that Wolfgang Schulze's photos were of high quality.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 275.
7. ↑ Paul Parthes: WOLS (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) . In: Humboldt , No. 49 (1972), pp. 28-31, here p. 30.
8. ↑ Paul Parthes: WOLS (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) . In: Humboldt , No. 49 (1972), pp. 28-31, here p. 29.
9. ↑ Schulze's stay in Spain, which served as a refuge for many political emigrants, has not yet been adequately dealt with.
10. ↑ The artists of the Galerie de la Pléiade included such well-known photographers as Ilse Bing , Brassaï , Henri Cartier-Bresson , André Kertész , Lee Miller , Man Ray , and Hans Bellmer .
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 276.
12. ↑ Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 277.
13. ↑ Toby Kamps: See Wols. In: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 62.
14. ↑ For the year 1947 alone, seven different accommodations have been handed down according to the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 192.
15. ↑ Christiane Lukatis: From Antonin Artaud to Jean-Paul Sartre. To the book illustrations by Wols. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 48.
16. ^ Gertrude von Schwarzenfeld : Sartre paid the bill. In: Die ZEIT of June 7, 1956. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
17. ^ Jean-Paul Satre: Visages précédés de portraits officiels. Seghers, Paris 1948.
18. ↑ Simone de Beauvoir: The course of things. rowohlt e-book.
19. ↑ ^{a b} Peter Groth: A circus full of sensuality. In: Weser Kurier v. February 25, 2012, p. 22
20. ↑ Ewald Rathke: Wols - The art trade, the collectors, the forgers (interview). In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 99.
21. ↑ Bettina Wohlfahrt: The great stranger . In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 23, 2020, p. 13.
22. ^ Rolf Wedewer: The painting of the Informel. Loss of the world and self-assertion. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, p. 185.
23. ^ Ewald Radtke: On the biography of the art of Wols. In: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 43.
24. ↑ Karin Sagner-Düchting: “The object expands beyond its appearance through knowledge of its interior.” Wols and Paul Klee in dialogue. In: Heinz Althöfer (Ed.): Informel. Encounter and change. Museum am Ostwall Dortmund 2002, p. 55.
25. ↑ Dorothee Gerkens: "The mysterious star of the scene." Wols, the informal and the German artists of the 1950s. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 14.
26. ↑ Karin Sagner-Düchting: “The object expands beyond its appearance through knowledge of its interior.” Wols and Paul Klee in dialogue. In: Heinz Althöfer (Ed.): Informel. Encounter and change. Museum am Ostwall Dortmund 2002, p. 46, note 4.
27. ^ Ewald Radtke: On the biography of the art of Wols. In: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 49.
28. ↑ Werner Haftmann: Painting in the 20th Century. Munich 1954. Quoted from Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 34.
29. ↑ Toby Kamps: See Wols. In: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 56.
30. ↑ Christiane Lukatis: From Antonin Artaud to Jean-Paul Sartre. To the book illustrations by Wols. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 28.
31. ↑ ^{a b} Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 274.
32. ↑ Christiane Lukatis: From Antonin Artaud to Jean-Paul Sartre. To the book illustrations by Wols. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, pp. 26 and 52.
33. ↑ Christiane Lukatis: From Antonin Artaud to Jean-Paul Sartre. To the book illustrations by Wols. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 51.
34. ^ Philipp Gutbrod: Wols (1913–1951) - The works on paper (annotated, critical catalog raisonné). 4 volumes, dissertation, Heidelberg 2003. Here after Stefan Koldehoff: Suddenly this excess. In: Die Welt , June 12, 2011 . See also Ewald Rathke: Wols - The art trade, the collectors, the forgers (interview). In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, p. 100.
35. ↑ Quoted from: Werner Haftmann: Neuerwerbungen der Nationalgalerie 1967–1972 , Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1972, p. 271.
36. ↑ Dorothee Gerkens: "The mysterious star of the scene." Wols, the Informel and the German artists of the 1950s. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, pp. 17–23.
37. ↑ Jean-Paul Satre: Finger and Non-Finger. Quoted from Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 35.
38. ^ Ewald Radtke: On the biography of the art of Wols. In: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 46.
39. ↑ Both images in: Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, pp. 69 and 92.
40. ↑ Quoted from Rolf Wedewer: The painting of the Informel. Loss of the world and self-assertion. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, p. 186.
41. ↑ Volker Bauermeister: As an artist he called himself Wols: On the 100th birthday of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulzes. In: Badische Zeitung, May 27, 2013. Accessed December 11, 2012.
42. ^ Tom L. Freudenheim: The German Artist Wols Gets a Long Overdue Retrospective. In: The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2013. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
43. ↑ Kunsthalle Bremen (ed.): Wols. The retrospective (exhibition catalog). Hirmer, Munich 2013, p. 37 f.
44. ↑ Harald Kimpel: “The self-perceived vulnerability of human being.” Wols, the documenta and the “cosmic jargon”. In: Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (ed.): Wols. Departure after 1945 (exhibition catalog). Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2014, pp. 74, 76, 82 and 83.
45. ^ Rolf Wedewer: The painting of the Informel. Loss of the world and self-assertion. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2007, p. 182.
46. ^ Stella A. Retrieved May 28, 2013
47. ↑ Exhibition website ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 27, 2013  
48. ↑ Exhibition website , accessed on June 8, 2013 ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
49. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on July 9, 2014.
50. ↑ Martin-Gropius-Bau. Wols photographer. The saved look. ( Memento from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Berliner Festspiele 2014
51. ↑ Bettina Wohlfahrt: The great stranger . In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 23, 2020, p. 13.

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 25, 2016 in this version .