What do artists do in times of dictatorship and war? For the first time, the entire artistic estate of the abstract painter Fritz Winter (1905–1976) is accessible. It opens a new view of one of the most important phases in his work.
At the centre of the exhibition is the famous group of works "Triebkräfte der Erde". Winter created them in 1944 after a war injury, when the National Socialists had long since branded him an artist to be shunned. His works show an impressive engagement with the elemental forces and laws of nature. They came into being in a brief breathing space between two military deployments.
Fritz Winter studied at the Bauhaus under Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. From 1933 he could no longer exhibit in Germany, and in 1937 his art was denounced as "degenerate". In increasing isolation, he concentrated entirely on nature.