Otto Fried

Heaven Can Wait / Heaven Can't Wait

Koblenz, Ludwig Museum
dal 21 Giugno al 16 Agosto 2020

The exhibition

Otto Fried was born in Koblenz in 1922. Due to the emerging anti-Semitism in Germany, his family sent him to the United States, where he arrived in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1936. In 1943 he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps and was deployed to various theaters of war in India, China and Burma. Upon his return, he enrolled in the Art and Architecture Department at the University of Oregon in 1947.
At the end of 1949 he traveled to France to work with Fernand Léger, in whose studio he worked for two years. In 1951 he received his first solo exhibition in the American Library in Paris. Works by him were shown in New York as early as 1952. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, bought a monotype for the permanent collection in 1960.

The exhibition promoted by the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz offers an overview on Otto Fried’s career: works from the early days (1950s), which are presented with a few oil paintings and almost cubist-like drawings, form the foundation of an almost exclusively abstract visual language that the artist developed later. Compositions based primarily on cosmic disks and circles, of which Fried formulates numerous variations that are very lively in color. This creates interweaving of depth and space, of a mostly melodic sound, which he concentrates in the center of the picture and allows it to subside towards the edges. Some sculptures expand the view of his work, which is multifaceted and varied to the present day.

The catalogue

Otto Fried was born in 1922 in Koblenz, but left Germany in 1936 due to the persecution of Jewish citizens and settled in Portland, Oregon. In 1949 he traveled to Paris to work in the studio of Fernand Léger for two years. For a long time he lived and worked in New York and Paris before settling permanently in Paris from 2010.
Primarily based on cosmic-looking discs and circles, Fried developed his very own pictorial language, which distinguished him as the heir of the Avantgarde, combining approaches from German Expressionism, French Cubism as well as American Realism up to the Concrete Art developing in France after 1945. __

Otto Fried wird 1922 in Koblenz geboren, verlässt Deutschland jedoch aufgrund der Verfolgung jüdischer Bürger 1936 und lebt zunächst in Portland, Oregon. 1949 reist er nach Paris, um zwei Jahre im Atelier Fernand Légers zu arbeiten. Lange Zeit lebt und arbeitet er in New York und Paris, bevor er sich ab 2010 dauerhaft in Paris niederlässt.
Vornehmlich auf kosmisch wirkenden Scheiben und Kreisen beruhend, entwickelt Fried seine ganz eigene Bildsprache, die ihn als Erben der Avantgarde auszeichnet. Dabei vereint er Ansätze des deutschen Expressionismus, des französischen Kubismus sowie des amerikanischen Realismus bis hin zur Konkreten Kunst der Jahre nach 1945 in Frankreich.

Koblenz, Ludwig Museum, June/Juni - August 2020

Summary

Foreword
Beate Reifenscheid

Early Years: From Expressionism to Abstraction
Beate Reifenscheid

“Flowering Atmospheres”. Abstract Art and Circles in the Paintings by Otto Fried
Larissa Wesp

WORKS 1948⁄1979

Otto Fried. A Personal Tribute
Lisa Forrell

Metal Relief Sculptures
Otto Fried Interviewed by Kenneth Snelson, Summer 1991

WORKS 1980-1987

Heaven, Sky, and Rivers
Barbara Wolbert

WORKS 1987⁄2005

List of works
Biography
Museums and Collections
Bibliography

Otto Fried

Heaven Can Wait / Heaven Can't Wait

  € 28,00  € 26,60