Willy Fries (painter, 1907)
Willy Fries (born May 26, 1907 in Wattwil in Toggenburg , † July 18, 1980 ibid) was a Swiss painter and book author .
Life
Willy Fries grew up in Wattwil and attended primary and secondary school there. He then went to the St. Gallen Cantonal School . After graduating from high school, he studied art and literary history for a semester at the University of Zurich in 1929 , but on the advice of his teacher Heinrich Wölfflin he gave this up in favor of studying art. After a stint in Paris , where he studied at the Grande Chaumière and worked in the studios of Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant , he continued his training in Berlin from 1930 to 1934 , at the university and the Academy of Arts . During his time in Berlin he approached the Confessing Church and made friends with Dietrich Bonhoeffer . In 1935 he returned to Wattwil due to a skiing accident. In the following years (1936 to 1944), Wattwil produced his main work, the cycle of paintings The Passion for the Garrison Church in Cologne-Marienburg . The scene of this cycle is in the local Toggenburg and the figures are also contemporary. During this time, Fries married in 1939 and finally settled in Wattwil.
In the years after the Second World War, Fries developed into a busy artist of sacred art, who among other things created a Christmas story Christ is born against the backdrop of bombed Munich (1944 to 1949), but also stained glass windows and frescoes for churches both in Eastern Switzerland and in Berlin , Bonn and Seifhennersdorf . In 1962 he showed the self-directed film adaptation of his Passion entitled 'Give us Peace', which was awarded the recognition prize at the Interfilme Conference in Brussels and was broadcast by numerous television stations.
Awards
- 1970: Rembrandt Prize from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Foundation in Salzburg
- 1972: Honorary doctorate from the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Bern
literature
- Ruedi Heinzer, Heinz Liebich, Ueli Ott: Willy Fries - milestone against forgetting. ArteMedia, Birsfelden 2001, ISBN 3-905290-21-9 .
- Willy Fries: Painted Face. With an introduction by Heinrich Vogel. Lahr 1956.
- Walter Nigg : Willy Fries. In: Maler des Ewigen II. Artemis Verlag, Zurich 1961, pp. 433–484.
Web links
- Website of the Willy Fries Foundation
- Silvan Faessler: Fries, Willy. In: Sikart
- Literature by and about Willy Fries in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fries, Willy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss painter and book author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 26, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wattwil |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 18, 1980 |
| Place of death | Wattwil |