Rachel Stern2021-02-24T07:06:52-05:00March 3rd, 2017|Select Press Coverage|
EXPRESSIONISTISCHE KUNST IM MUSEUM GUNZENHAUSER Chemnitz – Zur Eröffnung der 26. Tage der jüdischen Kultur in Chemnitz wird am Samstag eine Sonderausstellung zum deutschen Künstler Fritz Ascher präsentiert. Die Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz zeigen im Museum Gunzenhauser rund 40 Gemälde und Grafiken des 1893 in Berlin geborenen Expressionisten, der bisher nur wenigen Kunstkennern ein Begriff ist. Die in New York lebende Kuratorin, Rachel Stern, hat erstmals eine Einzelausstellung zu Fritz Ascher organisiert, die nun in Chemnitz Station macht. Als Kind von evangelisch getauften, assimilierten Juden fand der Künstler zu einer kraftvollen Bildsprache, die seine Spiritualität – aber auch seine innere Zerrissenheit widerspiegelt. Während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus war Fritz Ascher zeitweise im Gefängnis und im KZ Sachsenhausen inhaftiert, konnte bis Kriegsende jedoch [...]
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 [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:38:08-05:00December 7th, 2016|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, As the holiday season is upon us, we at the Fritz Ascher Society had an exciting discovery: the gouache of a “Male Head” to the left appeared at auction in November. Even though it is not signed or dated, we recognize the gouache as a study for Fritz Ascher’s “Golem” from 1916. The features of the “Male Head” appear both in the Golem itself, as well as in the person on the left. The original graphite drawing from 1916 was later painted over with red, green, blue and black ink by the artist himself. He did this most probably in the late 1940s, when the artist repeatedly reworked previously done works on canvas and paper. Fritz Ascher, “Male [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:43:56-05:00July 28th, 2016|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Today we are all about literature. 400 years ago the poet William Shakespeare died (1564-1616). Ever since, the dramatic scenes in his plays have inspired many artists’ brush and pen, like William Turner, Edvard Munch, Max Slevogt and Lovis Corinth. Fritz Ascher drew scenes from Shakespeare’s "King John“, "King Richard II." and "Henry IV." He is almost certainly inspired by numerous performances, especially in Berlin. Most famous was the Austrian theater producer Max Reinhardt, who staged Shakespeare's plays at the "Deutsches Theater" and the "Großes Schauspielhaus". The drawing below shows the stage in the right background; in the foreground a man and a woman sit in a box, the rest of the audience sits below. Stage plays have [...]
Newsletter #4 December 2015
Rachel Stern2018-12-04T12:45:51-05:00December 17th, 2015|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, As the days are getting shorter and darker, and will at some point probably get colder as well, I remember fondly this past summer, when I had the chance to discover the vastness and diversity of the Grunewald, the largest city forest in Berlin, with Dr. Gudrun Rademacher, the long term director of the Forest Museum Grunewald. Within minutes Fritz Ascher was there, and he often walked for hours, usually in the early mornings or late at night. He documents in his art what he sees: heavy-trunked trees stand in open landscape, shaken by the wind, deep in leaf, or winterly bare. Dr. Rademacher discovered gouaches of the Forest Museum, the Hunting Castle with its signature orange roof, [...]
Newsletter #3 October 2015
Rachel Stern2016-12-08T00:03:24-05:00October 25th, 2015|Newsletter|
Best wishes to our Jewish friends in 5776! May it be a good and peaceful year for everyone. EXHIBITION A few days ago, the exhibition "»Making Amends« Compensation and Restitutions in a Divided Berlin" was opened at the Gedenkstätte deutscher Widerstand in Berlin. The exhibition, which was organized by a team of the Aktives Museum and the Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz Berlin is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi terror regime with this in-depth examination of the practice of restitution after 1945. Especially in Berlin, where during the Cold War two completely different concepts of restitution existed side-by-side, their political framework and its consequences for the restitution procedures can be demonstrated like nowhere else. [...]
Rachel Stern2018-12-03T17:21:48-05:00June 10th, 2015|Exhibitions, Past Exhibitions|
The first ever Fritz Ascher Retrospective is on view at the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus in Osnabrück from September 25, 2016 until January 15, 2017. website link This first comprehensive retrospective of Fritz Ascher's art shows a representative group of ca. 80 works (30 paintings and 50 works on paper), which span his whole oeuvre from first academic studies to monumental Expressionist figure compositions to late landscapes. The emotional immediacy, intensity and authenticity of Fritz Ascher’s work insures its relevance for today’s viewers. At the same time, it raises interesting questions about individuality and artistic integrity in response to conditions of extreme duress and to political tyranny. The exhibition is under patronage of the German Minister of Culture and Media Prof. Monika Grütters. [...]
