Otto Freundlich
Otto Freundlich | |
|---|---|
| Born | 10 July 1878 |
| Died | 9 March 1943 (aged 64) Majdanek concentration camp, General Government (German-occupied Poland) |
| Known for | Painting and sculpture |
Otto Freundlich (10 July 1878 – 9 March 1943) was a German painter and sculptor of Jewish origin. One of the first generation of abstract artists, Freundlich deeply admired cubism and spent much of his life in France. He was murdered at the Majdanek concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Life
Freundlich was born in Stolp, Province of Pomerania, Prussia. His mother was writer Samuel Lublinski's cousin.
Trained in dentistry, Freundlich turned to art and moved to Paris in 1908, living at the Bateau-Lavoir with Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.
He returned to Germany in 1914. After World War I, he joined the socialist November Group. He co-organized the first Dada exhibition in Cologne (1919) with Johannes Theodor Baargeld and Max Ernst.
Freundlich returned to France in 1924 or 1925, joining Abstraction-Création. The Nazis banned his work as "degenerate art", seizing several pieces for the Degenerate Art exhibition; his monumental sculpture Der Neue Mensch (The New Human) was used mockingly as the catalogue cover.[1] (Though now missing and likely destroyed, another of his sculptures was unearthed in 2010 during construction in Berlin and displayed at the Neues Museum.)[2][3][4]
He joined the Union des Artistes Allemands Libres.[5] During the occupation, he and his wife fled to the Pyrenees. Interned in Vichy France, he was briefly released through Picasso's intervention. In 1943, he was arrested and deported to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he was murdered upon arrival.
Legacy
A bust honors Freundlich in his hometown, now Słupsk.
Largely negleced since Nazi persecution, his work was covered in the 2012 documentary Das Geht Nur Langsam (It Takes Time), which traces his vision of European streets lined with sculptures embodying utopian ideals.
Gallery
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Composition (1911)
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The Mother (1921)
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Spherical bodies (1925)
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My red heaven (1932)
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Composition (1932)
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Catalogue cover for the Degenerate Art exhibition, with his sculpture Der Neue Mensch
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Komposition (1939)
See also
References
- ^ "Otto Freundlich und Jeanne Kloss". strasse-des-friedens.com. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ "Art believed destroyed by Nazis found in Berlin". CBS News. Associated Press. 15 November 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2023.
- ^ "Buried in a Bombed-Out Cellar: Nazi Degenerate Art Rediscovered in Berlin". Der Spiegel. 11 August 2010.
- ^ "Photo Gallery: Sensational Find in a Bombed-Out Cellar". Der Spiegel. 11 August 2010.
- ^ Siegfried Gnichwitz, "Heinz Kiwitz: gekämpft · vertrieben · verschollen" Archived 20 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine (PDF) Stiftung Brennender Dornbusch. Folder from an exhibition in honor of the 100th anniversary of Kiwitz' birth. Liebfrauenkirche, Duisburg (7 November – 5 December 2010), p. 5. Retrieved 10 February 2012 (in German)
External links
- A Forcing of Barriers – A staged encounter between Freundlich and Nazi sculptor, Arno Breker, conceived by Per-Oskar Leu for the online magazine, Triple Canopy.
- Biographic Details
- Das Geht Nur Langsam (It Takes Time) Documentary Film.