Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:07:01-05:00December 25th, 2017|Select Press Coverage|
Ein Zerrissener Das Potsdam Museum entdeckt Fritz Ascher, der sich in Potsdam vor den Nazis versteckte by Lena Schneider Wer war Fritz Ascher? Das Potsdam Museum hat diesem Unbekannten eine Sonderausstellung gewidmet. „Leben ist glühn“ heißt sie. Ein Bild, das hier hängt, kann man als bestürzende Antwort auf die Frage lesen. „Bajazzo“ heißt es, nach dem italienischen Bruder des Harlekin. Zu sehen ist eine schemenhafte Gestalt, in gelbem Kostüm. Im weiß geschminkten Gesicht ist so etwas wie ein trostloser Schatten des Clownsgenres auszumachen: schwarze Augen, die rot überzogen Mundwinkel krümmen sich nach unten. Das ganze Bild ist wie zerschossen von Farbpunkten. Die Antwort darauf, wer Fritz Ascher, geboren 1893 als Kind jüdischer Eltern, war, findet sich im Entstehungsdatum des Bildes: [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-13T19:05:14-05:00December 22nd, 2017|Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions|
Stiftung Gedenkstätte Lindenstrasse in Potsdam examines for the first time the history of the Potsdam police prison, the prison where Fritz Ascher spent almost 5 months in 1939. When the prison building in what is today Henning-von-Tresckow-Strasse was torn down in 2002, Potsdam historian Hannes Wittenberg was able to save two original artefacts, both today in the collection of the Potsdam Museum: an original prison door and a model of the prison building built by prisoners in the 1980s for fire protection exercises. Both objects are on display in the exhibition, together with original photographs and documents of the prison building. Fritz Ascher is one of the former prisoners, whose biography is being told. (website link) Questions being asked in [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:14:23-05:00December 22nd, 2017|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, I am humbled and honored to have received the Lea and Hans Grundig Prize for my work about Fritz Ascher. Right on time for his 125th birthday, the Fritz Ascher retrospective is now open in Berlin and Potsdam, the two places where the artist lived and worked. Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in der Villa Oppenheim in Berlin exhibits an overview of the artist’s creative development, with a focus on works that relate to Berlin. We see his sketch of the artist Max Liebermann as well as his love for music and performance in Weimar Republic paintings like “Beethoven” and “Bajazzo and Artists”. After surviving the Nazi terror regime in hiding in the Berlin Grunewald neighborhood, he painted these works over [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:15:18-05:00December 21st, 2017|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Today I am excited to share with you some photos of last week’s opening of “Beauteous Strivings: Fritz Ascher, Works on Paper”, which is on view at the New York Studio School daily 10:00am-6:00pm until December 3 (website link). In this exhibition, “powerful emotions seem to lurk just beneath the apparent directness and economy of the tree and flower paintings” of the 1950s and 1960s, observes curator Karen Wilkin in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition. She continues: “A sense of near-obsession, of ferocious concentration, of focus that excluded everything else, was palpable, made visible in the traces of his rapidly moving hand, driving across the paper, making loops and whorls, and then abruptly changing direction. At the [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-03T16:06:56-05:00December 8th, 2017|Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions|
Coming home: With more than 80 paintings and works on paper, the worldwide first Fritz Ascher Retrospective is on view at the places where Fritz Ascher lived and worked, with parallel exhibitions in Berlin and Potsdam. Each venue shows a representative group of powerful paintings and drawings, which span Ascher's whole oeuvre from first academic studies to monumental Expressionist figure compositions to late landscapes. Both venues present Fritz Ascher's poems, written while hiding from Nazi persecution, as "unpainted paintings" in relation to his artwork. In Berlin, Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in der Villa Oppenheim shows an overview of the artist’s creative development, with a focus on works that relate to Berlin. We see his sketch of the artist Max Liebermann as [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:21:16-05:00October 25th, 2017|Select Press Coverage|
Bilder eines Vereinsamten Das Museum Gunzenhauser erinnert an den kaum bekannten jüdischen Künstler Fritz Ascher: Dessen expressionistisch-symbolistische Bilder sind eine echte Wiederentdeckung wert, denn zwei Weltkriege konnten seine künstlerische Kraft nur schwächen - aber nicht brechen Matthias Zwarg CHEMNITZ - Es gibt ein Porträt von Fritz Ascher aus dem Jahr 1912, gemalt von seinem Freund Eduard Bischoff. Es zeigt einen optimistischen jungen Mann: Anzug, rote Krawatte, frech den Kopf auf den Arm gestützt, lächelt er froh und selbstbewusst dem Betrachter entgegen. Und es gibt ein Selbstporträt von Fritz Ascher aus dem Jahr 1953: Weiss und grau über schwarzer Tusche, Aquarell-Farbtupfer wie Wunden in dem Gesicht, in das so etwas wie die Suche nach Fassung nach dem Entsetzen eingeschrieben ist. Dazwischen [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:27:33-05:00September 17th, 2017|Select Press Coverage|
Kunststück Wiebke Hölzer Die Masse stürmte um ihn her. / Starr, stumm, in sich blieb er versunken.« So beginnt das von dem Berliner Künstler Fritz Ascher verfasste Gedicht »Bajazzo«. Die Zeilen umschreiben treffend das Sichtbare auf seinem gleichnamigen Ölgemälde: Starr und wie in einem Sturm aus farbigen Pinselstrichen schreitet der Bajazzo, also die italienische Clownsfigur, nach links gewandt von einer abstrakt gehaltenen Umgebung ins Dunkel. Als erste Körperform nimmt der Betrachter den Kopf wahr, während der Rest des Körpers mit dem Hintergrund verschmilzt. Zwar reduziert Ascher die Mimik der Figur, aber gestaltet sie gleichzeitig ausdrucksstark - der Mund vermittelt das Gefühl von Traurigkeit und die Augen in Form schwarzer Höhlen symbolisieren als Spiegel der Seele das leere, einsame Innere. Die [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:33:00-05:00September 1st, 2017|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, It was fun to attend the opening of “Hauptstadtfussball” at the Ephraim Palais in Berlin, celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Berlin soccer club Herta BSC and its local rivals. I learned so many things about soccer in Berlin, and about Herta BSC in this creative, well researched exhibition. And you can see Fritz Ascher’s “Soccer Players” from c. 1916! It will be on view until January 8, 2018. link Thank you to Sven Goldmann for bringing Fritz Ascher alive in his full page piece in the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel! link Here in New York, the preparations for “‘Beauteous Strivings.’ Fritz Ascher - Works on Paper” at the New York Studio School are in full swing. The New [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:33:53-05:00July 10th, 2017|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Time for the outdoors! What could be timelier than an exhibition about soccer. On July 26th, the Ephraim Palais in Berlin is opening “Hauptstadtfussball,” celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Berlin soccer club Herta BSC and its local rivals. In this exhibition, you can find Fritz Ascher’s “Soccer Players” from c. 1916! It will be on view until January 8, 2018: link Since the last newsletter, Wiebke Hölzer published two essays about Fritz Ascher, one in the Biographisch-Bibliografisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL, vol. 38, Nordhausen 2017), and one called "Kunststück" examining his “Bajazzo” from 1924 in Weltkunst No. 129 from May 2017 (pp. 120-121). And our most accomplished lawyer, the author Nicholas O'Donnell, a veteran attorney and litigation partner at the [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-03T16:06:57-05:00June 30th, 2017|Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions|
July 25th, 2017 is the 125th birthday of the Berlin soccer club Hertha BSC. This birthday is celebrated with a special exhibition at the museum Ephraim-Palais, which enables visitors to experience captivating chapters of Berlin sports- and city history. Today Herta is Number One among Berlin soccer clubs, followed by East Berlin's Union Berlin. But those who know the scene know that there are more than 400 soccer clubs in Berlin, with more that 150,000 members, as well as numerous soccer fields and pubs for fans. Fritz Ascher's drawing "Soccer Players" from c. 1916 is part of this exhibition. The artist portraits a dramatic scene: surrounded by four players the forward attacks from the left. His leg is still up [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:36:20-05:00February 28th, 2017|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Thank you for supporting us with your interest in our work, reading our newsletters and publications and/or visiting our exhibitions, and - last not least - supporting our work financially. 2016 was the first year that our work started showing, with the participation in the exhibition Verfahren. "Wiedergutmachung" im geteilten Berlin / »Making Amends« Compensation and Restitution Cases in Divided Berlin at Aktives Museum Berlin (October 9, 2015 - January 14, 2016) and Landgericht Berlin/Amtsgericht Mitte, Berlin (September 29 - November 18, 2016) and the long anticipated first ever retrospective with its comprehensive catalogue (link) "Leben ist Glühn" Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher / “To Live is to Blaze with Passion" The Expressionist Fritz Ascher at the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-03T16:21:23-05:00January 12th, 2017|Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions|
The worldwide first Fritz Ascher Retrospective is on view at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz - MUSEUM GUNZENHAUSER from March 5 to June 18, 2017. (website link) The main focus of the presentation at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz - MUSEUM GUNZENHAUSER is on the artist's important early masterworks like "Golgatha" (1915), "Bajazzo and Artists" (ca. 1916) and "The Tortured" (ca. 1916). For the first time ever, Fritz Ascher’s “Golem” from the collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin will here be reunited with other works the artist created between 1913 and 1933. The Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz is home to an important collection of German Expressionism, dominated by artwork of the locally founded Expressionist group Brücke and especially Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who grew up in Chemnitz, along [...]
