Since 1977, the Walter Storms Galerie in Munich has consistently developed a gallery program that focuses on non-representational, concrete, and conceptual art. With the gallery\u2019s branch in Berlin, we want to offer our artists a new, broader, and more international audience.<\/p>\n
We are dedicating the first exhibition in the Mercator H\u00f6fe to G\u00fcnter 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 L\u00e9ger to study in his private studio and became an assistant in Jean Arp\u2019s studio. On Arp\u2019s recommendation, Fruhtrunk joined the circle of artists at the legendary Galerie Denise Ren\u00e9, 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\u2019s participation in \u201cThe Responsive Eye\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
G\u00fcnter 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, G\u00fcnter Fruhtrunk donated his monumental painting \u201cForderung. Lichtgrundiertes Dunkel\u201c to the Friends of the National Gallery Berlin association to support the planned purchase of Barnett Newman\u2019s painting \u201dWho\u2019s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue.\u201d 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\u2019s life\u2019s work in an extensive retrospective with further exhibition stops at the Westf\u00e4lisches Landesmuseum M\u00fcnster, the Lenbachhaus, and the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.<\/p>\n
G\u00fcnter Fruhtrunk\u2019s work is recorded in the \u201cWerkverzeichnis der Bilder \/ Catalogue Raisonn\u00e9 of The Paintings,\u201d published by the G\u00fcnter Fruhtrunk Gesellschaft e.V. in 2018.<\/p>\n