Fritz Kohlstädt (1921-2000), Farmstead on Bornholm, 1990

Fritz Kohlstädt(1921 Stuttgart - 2000 Pforzheim), Farmstead on Bornholm , 1990. Watercolor on heavy paper, 56 cm (height) x 78 cm (width), signed and dated lower left, signed, dated, and inscribed on the reverse.

- In very good colorfast condition

- The energy of the landscape -

A purple sky rises above a yellow dune landscape, with trees, a house, and the sea visible in between. The picture thus consists of three horizontal zones, which lend the deep spatial landscape a two-dimensionality that directly relates the purple of the sky to the yellow of the dunes. This creates a color space into which the middle zone, composed of shades of green, red, and blue, is inserted. An expressive structure that is further intensified by the internal progression of colors from dark to light and vice versa. Through this expressive energy, the painting—despite its calm forms—has an almost dramatic mood that lends the scene a sense of mystery.

About the artist

From 1946 to 1948, Fritz Kohlstädt took drawing lessons from Walter Romberg in Stuttgart, but was otherwise self-taught. His artistic work was influenced by the Expressionist works that became accessible again after the Second World War, whose ideas, fabric and form effects he further developed in his oeuvre. In addition to oil and chalk painting, watercolor was Kohlstädt's preferred artistic medium for his expressive landscape paintings, which were inspired by Maurice de Vlaminck, Edvard Munch, and Emil Nolde.

In 1958, Fritz Kohlstädt and other artists founded the “Sindelfinger Sezession” (“The Twelve”), a splinter group of the Stuttgart Artists' Association. He was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 1981 for his artistic work. His works can be found in numerous public collections.