FRIEDRICHS, FRITZ (1882-1928)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Garden Of A Military Hospital" (1917) 
oil on canvas
50 x 60cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Sydney
 
Friedrichs was a respected German Post-Impressionist. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg from 1899 &, two years later, became a student of renowned Impressionist, Arthur Siebelist. In 1903, together with Siebelist's other private students, he became a member of the Hamburgischer Künstlerklub. In 1904, he & his fellow students held a major exhibition at the Galerie Commeter, a highly respected gallery that had been established in 1821. Their showing was highly praised by Alfred Lichtwark, head of the Kunsthalle Hamburg. He took a study trip to the Netherlands in 1908 & exhibited with Die Brücke in 1909, alongside German Expressionist icons Heckel, Kirchner, Nolde, Pechstein, & Mueller (among others). The following year, he established his own private art school at his studio. In 1911, he began working as an art critic & married Gertrud Harlos, one of his models. At the beginning of WWI, he was drafted & sent to Poland. After spending some time in a military hospital, he was discharged and went back to exhibiting, notably with the Free Secession in 1919. Here he exhibited alongside legendary German artists including Barlach, Kollwitz, Liebermann, Schmitt-Rottluff & Slevogt. He died tragically in 1928, following a long illness, at the age of 46. A major retrospective of his work, "Die Siebelistschüler Fritz Friedrichs und Walter Voltmer" was presented by the Hamburgische Landesbank in 1991. His works are represented in numerous major galleries, including another work from this series at the Kunsthalle Hamburg.