Michael Werner Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of three monumental bronzes by the German sculptor and painter, Otto Freundlich.
Born in 1878 in Stolp, Germany, Freundlich traveled to Paris for the first time in 1909, beginning over thirty years of spririted artistic and intellectual involvement with the French and German avant-garde. A close friend of Picasso, Gris, Kandinsky, and other major figures of the avant-garde, his work forms an important link in the development of modernism.
Although Freundlich's level of engagement with the avant-garde was intense and productive, he received little recognition during his life, spending much of it in poverty. In 1931, he wrote in his journal looking back upon his first years in Paris: 'We all lived in a spirit of humility'lived purely for our art and for what our art represented for us.'He was most well-known for a sculpture that was placed on the cover of the exhibition catalogue for Entartete Kunst, Hitler's exhibition of 'degenerate art'held in 1937. In 1943, Freundlich was deported from Paris to a concentration camp in Poland where he died.
Created between 1929 and 1935 during his years in Paris, these three sculptures are the product of a concentrated period of experimentation in the conciliation of complex organic and geometric elements. Although highly prized and collected by many major European museums, these works are little known in the United States, and extremely rare. This exhibition will be an introduction for many to a seminal figure of European Modernism. His work has been featured in many international exhibitions and collections, including the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 10am until 6pm. A full-color catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
For more information, please contact the gallery.