Adolf Fleischmann: Ein abstrakter amerikanischer Maler?

Renate Wiehager (Herausgeber)

It’s about construction

In 1955, the artist and author Will Barnet, as a matter of fact, presented Adolf Fleischmann as an »American painter« in his text »Aspects of American Abstract Paint­ing« and in 1966, Fleischmann is listed in Paul Cummings’ »Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists« among the leading artists of the United States. These kind of statements from the New York painting scene of the 1950s reflect an evaluation of his importance, which had previously been largely ignored in the entire literature on Fleischmann: The painter, born in 1892 in the Southern German town of Esslingen, moved to America only in 1952 aged 60, but he was nonetheless soon acclaimed in the mecca of art on America’s east coast as an ­»American abstract artist«, and became a great origin­ator in the context of abstract art, as inspired by Mondrian. Adolf Fleischmann, represented with a significant group of works in the Daimler Art Collection, is one of the outstanding abstract painters in Germany and the USA after 1945. The Daimler Art Collection Berlin now presents the first retrospective of the artist’s work in Berlin with around sixty works from three decades, including the principal work painted in New York between 1952 and 65, complemented by representative paintings created during the 1940s while still in Europe. The publication accompanying the exhibition presents the first thorough examination of Fleischmann’s work in the context of American abstract painting of the period. Also published are early texts on the reception of the Fleischmann’s American oeuvre from the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, this is the first English-language publication on Fleischmann’s painting, so that his work now promises to engage audiences as well as museums in the US. The later work by Adolf Fleischmann, both in its astonish­ing coherence as well as its painterly variations and multi-faceted abundance, now awaits discovery and appreciation in the context of German and American 20th century art.Exhibition:Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 30/4–6/11/2016