Adolf Fleischmann
Adolf Richard Fleischmann (born 18 March 1892 in Esslingen am Neckar, † January 28, 1968 in Stuttgart ) was a German painter. His late work is placed in the vicinity of constructivism. He is considered the precursor of Op Art.
Life
Fleischmann was born as the third child of the merchant Wilhelm Adolf Fleischmann and his wife Paulina Maria on 18 March 1892 in Esslingen.
After high school he studied from 1908 at the School of Applied Arts in Stuttgart and joined in 1911 the Royal Academy of Art. Here, he met with Adolf Hölzel and Robert Poetzelberger.
After a brief spell as a staff artist and painter at the Municipal Exhibition Office of Health Care, Stuttgart, and at the Workshop for Graphic Arts under Paul Hahn Fleischmann in 1914 drafted into military service. The following year he was so badly wounded on the Eastern Front, he was released from military service.
Temporarily, he designed book covers at Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and the JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, both in Stuttgart.
Through intercession of his half-sister Luise Lotte Volger, who was employed as Moulageuse at the Cantonal Hospital in Zurich, he received in 1917 there is also a job. Fleischmann worked until July 1928 (with interruptions ) as a scientific illustrator and Moulageur in Zurich. Many of the plaster casts made by him at that time have been preserved and the University Hospital Zurich to visit.
1921 Fleischmann took part in the exhibition of the Munich " New Secession " part. He was particularly inspired by Franz Marc and other Expressionists. As a result, he strongly painted expressionist paintings.
This was followed by work stays in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Paris, but also in Germany (Berlin and Hamburg). From 1925 comes Fleischmann's first preserved, not uninfluenced by cubism abstract painting. In 1928 he participated in the " Juryfreien " exhibitions in Stuttgart and Berlin, and again at the " New Secession ", Munich, in part.
1933-1936 he spent a long time in Majorca and Paris. From 1936 to 1938 he traveled in the company of his beloved Bertha Loof by Italy and stayed on mainly on Ischia. In July 1938 his son Dieter Loof was born, who died at the age of about four years.
Since he now only abstract painting, he avoided a possible confrontation with the Nazi rulers by moving to France. In Paris, he joined the group l' Équipe. Thus he met influential artists such as Robert Delaunay and Albert Gleizes. There he supported the Resistance against the German occupation. By the end of the war he lived in various places in southern France, especially in Graulhet / Tarn. Several times he was interned in the camp as " Les Milles " at Aix -en- Provence, from which he managed to escape in October 1940.
End of 1944, Adolf Fleischmann came out of his hiding place in the south of France liberated Paris, where he worked in his studio completely devastated, only the remnants of his paintings, the work of many years vorfand. A. F. literally " I experienced a nervous breakdown ." With the help of his French friends, however, he was soon able to resume his artistic work again, and participate 1952 until his departure to the United States and in exhibitions in Paris. A. F. signed those incurred in the early postwar period working under the pressure of a more violent anti-German sentiments with the pseudonym Richard, his middle name. In the catalog of the Realitéts Nouvelles No.1, 1947, a picture of AF to see, which is attributed to a painter Richard here. A. F. has not used in the U.S., the pseudonym Richard.
At the end of the war and in the early postwar years Fleischmann had a brief " geometric phase " in the sense of concrete art, but which he soon abandoned again in favor of less stringent motives for the first time. He joined the group Réalités nouvelles and moved to Paris for a few years. His living he earned with designs for posters, magazines titles, wallpaper and fabrics (eg linen for Dior ).
In 1948 he married Elly evening star, and in the same year he had his first solo exhibition at the gallery Creuze in Paris.
1950 Fleischmann turned again to the geometric shape to, but less in terms of the concrete art, but rather in the context of serial painting. He was thus an early precursor of Op Art. At the age of almost 60 years now he had his own distinctive style found, which is characterized by rhythmically grouped narrow strips that are integrated into narrow angle. In 1951 he exhibited his latest works at the Galerie Colette Allendy.
As he got offered better job opportunities in the U.S., he moved in 1952 to New York. Here he lived both as a staff artist at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University as well as a freelance painter. Solo exhibitions and experiments with cardboard and similar materials accompany his New York time.
In 1958 he returned as visit back for nearly three months after Europe; in this period also saw the nuanced change in the severity of his geometric style in favor of aerated lines, stripes and figurations. Still, he remained committed to the geometry, but his pictures were softer.
In 1962, he fell seriously ill. 1963 and 1964 he spent 16 months on in Stuttgart. During this time the "Metamorphoses " pictures were taken: the individual L-forms are drawn together as blocks.
Fleischmann traveled end of 1964 back to New York, where in 1965 he suffered a severe stroke. Due to the improved medical treatment he returned to Stuttgart. There were 1966, Adolf Fleischmann - anniversary exhibition at the Württemberg Art Club, which made him famous abruptly and meant his final breakthrough in Germany. He even created some twenty relief-like collagen in the next two years, despite a partial paralysis.
Fleischmann died on January 28, 1968 in Stuttgart to the late effects of stroke; He was buried on the Ebershaldenfriedhof in Esslingen.
In 1973 there was the first major Adolf Fleischmann retrospectives at the Ulmer Museum and the Westphalian State Museum of Münster; 1987 his works were exhibited at the Modern Gallery of the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken.