Fritz Kohler

Fritz Kohler (German, 1887–1972).

An early twentieth-century German landscape showing a panoramic view of a recently harvested field of wheat with golden sunlight glistening on the chaff and silhouetting the distant trees. An exceptionally successful work from Kohler's early period, painted when the artist was 25 and attending the Weimar Academy.

Born Friedrich Kohler, Fritz spent his youth in Hamburg and first studied at the School of Applied Arts in Hamburg (1905–07). The then-director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Alfred Lichtwark, recognized Kohler's talent and advised him to attend the university in Weimar. Kohler subsequently studied at the Academy Weimar, first with Max Thedy (1909–10) and then as a master student of Theodor Hagen (1910–12). From 1913, Kohler was active in Dusseldorf-Oberkassel and exhibited with success at the Art Palace Dusseldorf and the Great Berlin Art exhibitions (1938–1944) including at the Great German Art Exhibitions at the House of German Art in Munich and the Kunsthalle Hamburg.

During World War II, Kohler's apartment and studio in Dusseldorf-Oberkassel were destroyed and he evacuated to Berchtesgaden, returning to Dusseldorf in 1945. Fritz Kohler was a member of the Reich Association of Visual Artists of Germany as well as of the Dusseldorf Artists' Association Malkasten and was co-founder of the "Artist Group 1949." In 1967, he received the Order of Merit. Over the course of a long and successful career, Kohler exhibited widely. He was the recipient of numerous prizes, medals and juried awards and is listed in both Thieme-Becker and Benezit's definitive dictionary of artists.

Signed lower right recto, additionally signed and inscribed 'Weimar' verso

E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 7, p. 911.

Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zu Gengenwart, Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 21, p. 119.

Vollmer Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler des 20. Jarhhunderts, Hans Vollmer, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 3, p. 78.