To mark the opening of the new branch of the Walter Storms Gallery in Berlin, we are presenting a comprehensive exhibition of works by Günter Fruhtrunk (1923–1982). The focus is on six large-format, characteristic paintings with precisely placed, rhythmically pulsating colored stripes—a trademark that makes Fruhtrunk’s work unmistakable. Three early paintings from his beginnings in Paris in the 1950s complete this overview.
Since 1977, the Walter Storms Gallery in Munich has consistently developed a gallery program that focuses on non-representational, concrete, and conceptual art. With the gallery’s branch in Berlin, we want to offer our artists a new, broader, and more international audience.
We are dedicating the first exhibition in the Mercator Höfe to Günter Fruhtrunk (1923-1982), one of the most important German painters of the post-war era. Fruhtrunk was one of the first German artists to move to Paris in the early 1950s, where he was accepted by Fernand Léger to study in his private studio and became an assistant in Jean Arp’s studio. On Arp’s recommendation, Fruhtrunk joined the circle of artists at the legendary Galerie Denise René, where he was given a contract and exhibited regularly from 1957 onwards. His first comprehensive exhibition in Germany was in 1963 at the Museum am Ostwall in Dortmund. Fruhtrunk’s participation in “The Responsive Eye” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965 was of international significance. This was followed in 1968 by his participation in documenta IV in Kassel and the 34th Venice Biennale. From 1967 until his suicide in 1982, Fruhtrunk was professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
Günter Fruhtrunk was not particularly visible in Berlin during his lifetime. The distinguished Bossin Gallery, which was dedicated entirely to concrete art and closed in 1985, showed Fruhtrunk in solo exhibitions in 1977, 79, and 80. Shortly before his death, Günter Fruhtrunk donated his monumental painting “Forderung. Lichtgrundiertes Dunkel“ to the Friends of the National Gallery Berlin association to support the planned purchase of Barnett Newman’s painting ”Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue.” It was a unique event in 1982: the best German artists donated works to enable the acquisition of an icon of American art, documented in a bibliophile publication designed by Wolf Vostell. In 1993, the National Gallery honored Fruhtrunk’s life’s work in an extensive retrospective with further exhibition stops at the Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster, the Lenbachhaus, and the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.
Günter Fruhtrunk’s work is recorded in the “Werkverzeichnis der Bilder / Catalogue Raisonné of The Paintings,” published by the Günter Fruhtrunk Gesellschaft e.V. in 2018.
Günter Fruhtrunk, Wiederentdeckung, 1980, Acrylic on canvas, 191 × 276 cm, WVZ #923
Günter Fruhtrunk, Ohne Titel, 1956, Oil on canvas, wooden frame, 150 × 150 cm, WVZ #81
Günter Fruhtrunk, Aufruhr, 1974, Acrylic and casein on canvas, aluminum frame, 92 × 100 cm, WVZ #727
Günter Fruhtrunk, Komposition, 1952, oil on hardboard, wooden frame, 100 × 80 cm, WVZ #29
Günter Fruhtrunk, Ohne Titel (Dehnung nach Innen), 1975, Acrylic and casein on canvas, 140 × 302 cm, WVZ #807
Günter Fruhtrunk, Destruktion / Enttäuserung, 1979, Acrylic on canvas, 170 × 300 cm, WVZ #876
Günter Fruhtrunk, ENTLADUNG II, 1975, Acrylic on canvas, 165,5 x 204 cm, WVZ #931
Günter Fruhtrunk, GESTEIGERTE WIEDERHOLUNG, 1974/1975, Acrylic on canvas, 281 x 135,5 cm, WVZ #738
Günter Fruhtrunk, Konstantes Gelb, 1965/69, Acrylic and casein on canvas, 270 × 188 cm, WVZ #451