Fritz Winter

pseudonym: -

birth data

date of birth: 1905

place of birth: Altenbögge

death data

date of death: 1976

death: Herrsching

biography

Fritz Winter was born on 22 September 1905 in Altenbögge in Westphalia. In 1927 Winter was admitted to the Bauhaus in Dessau where he studied until 1930 under Klee, Kandinsky, Albers and Schlemmer, among others. At this time he also met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, whom he visited on several occasions in Davos. During the Nazi era Winters work was declared degenerate and he was banned from painting. Winter served as a soldier on the Eastern Front in World War II. On sick leave on Lake Ammer near Munich the artist created his famous group of works Triebkräfte der Erde (Driving Forces of the Earth) that is still considered a key work of post-war art today. He was held a prisoner of war in Russia and, soon after returning, Fritz Winter co-founded the ZEN 49 group and became closely involved with the European avant-garde and the Informel movement. Later he received a professorship at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel, a position he held until his retirement in 1970. During his own lifetime Winter was seen as one of the best-known German abstract artists of the post-war period and was honoured with a number of awards and exhibitions. Fritz Winter died on 1 October 1976 in Herrsching am Ammersee.