Fritz Winter
Untitled
1958
Oil on canvas 70 x 80.3 cm Framed in studio frame. Signed and dated 'FWinter 58' in black lower right. - In fine condition.
In the 1950s Fritz Winter enjoyed great success, not least fostered by numerous reviews by Will Grohmann, who represented an important force behind the painter's rise. Grohmann helped the artist to become established abroad too, for example in a publication in the French “Cahiers d'art” in 1953, or by putting him in touch with Henry Kleemann, a New York art dealer he had befriended and to whom he recommended Fritz Winter as one of Germany's most important contemporary artists in 1958 - no exaggeration given as one year later Winter not only participated in documenta II, but also became a member of the hanging committee. The artist, for his part, was suitably grateful and gave Grohmann a series of works as gifts over the years. Grohmann's private collection included more than ten works, among these this painting dating from 1958. In a letter to the artist from that same year, Grohmann thanked him for what was most probably this very work: “Your picture is hanging and unfurling and gets more beautiful every day. I don't know whether the penny dropped as soon as it arrived. I know I have already written to you, but I feel it's not sufficient somehow. Often with paintings you find that they only settle in after a certain time, and that's what has happened now.” (Fritz Winter writing to Will Grohmann, letter dated 1 December 1967, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart/Will Grohmann Archive, quoted from: Dresden 2012/1013, catalogue volume p. 320).
Catalogue Raisonné
Not recorded by Lohberg
Certificate
We would like to thank Helga Gausling, Fritz-Winter-Haus, Ahlen, for friendly comment.
Provenance
Will Grohmann Collection, Berlin; family collection since
Exhibitions
Dresden 2012/2013 (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau), Im Netzwerk der Moderne. Kirchner, Braque, Kandinsky, Klee, Richter, Bacon, Altenbourg und ihr Kritiker Will Grohmann, cat. no. 160, with illus. p. 323 (catalogue volume)