Günter Fruhtrunk (1923-1982) created a distinctive and outstanding body of work with his geometric-abstract and non-representational paintings. His medium is color, which he aims to free from any ‘external determination,’ stripping it of all culturally inherited or individual meanings. His visual language seeks to activate the act of seeing, aiming for a state that Fruhtrunk himself described as ‘freedom of seeing.’ This Enlightenment impulse is combined in his work with high painterly sensitivity and quality. His painting thus proves to be one of the most enduring and inspiring positions in German post-war art.

Fruhtrunk participated in documenta IV in 1968 and the Venice Biennale. In 1993, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin honored his work with a major retrospective, which was also shown at the Landesmuseum Münster, the Bavarian State Painting Collections, and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. From 1967 to 1982, Günter Fruhtrunk was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

Among the most recent museum highlights is the comprehensive retrospective for his 100th birthday, which started in 2023 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn and continues in 2024 at the Museum Wiesbaden. This exhibition features around 60 works from all phases of the artist’s career and highlights the development of his work in three major sections: from the early works of the 1950s, through the striped paintings of the 1960s, to the works of the 1970s and early 1980s. Another important exhibition, “The Paris Years (1954–1967),” is being shown at the Lenbachhaus Munich until April 2024.