Fritz Ascher (17 October 1893 – 26 March 1970) was a German artist, whose work is characterized by Expressionist and Symbolist sensitivity. In paintings, works on paper and poetry he explored existential questions and themes of contemporary social and cultural relevance, of spirituality and mythology. Ascher's expressive strokes and intense colors create emotionally intense and authentic work.
Early life and work Fritz Ascher was born in Berlin, on 17 October 1893, the son of the dental surgeon and businessman Dr. Hugo Ascher (1859–1922) and Minna Luise Ascher (born Schneider; 1867–1938).Civil Registry Office Berlin Center, no, 2/749. This and the following biographical information about Fritz Ascher is based on a reparation payments file at Landesamt für Bürger-und Ordnungsangelegenheiten Berlin, Abt. 1, Entschädigungsakte Nr. 002 060 (EA 2060), and information drawn from the archives of the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, CJA 4.1. No. 37/19.03.1946, friends, family and former neighbors. See Rachel Stern, Fritz Ascher: A life in the Arts and Poetry. In Stern, Rachel and Ori Z. Soltes, Eds. To Live is to Blaze with Passion: The Expressionist Fritz Ascher/ Leben ist Glühn: Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Wienand 2016, pp. 18–63. His sisters Charlotte Hedwig and Margarete Lilly (Grete) were born 8 October 1894 and 11 June 1897. Hugo Ascher converted his three children to Protestantism in 1901,ELAB 1291 0185 (1) his wife remained Jewish. Hugo Ascher's business was successful, and in 1909 the family moved into a villa in Niklasstraße 21–23 in Berlin-Zehlendorf, built by the prominent architect Professor Paul Schultze-Naumburg.
At the age of 16 he studied with Max Liebermann, who gave him the "Künstlereinjährige," an art diploma, and recommended him to the art academy Königsberg. There, dean Ludwig Dettmann, co-founder of the Berlin Secession, had hired dynamic teachers who emphasized the value of a solid, practical education.See Jörn Barfod, Fritz Ascher’s Time at the Königsberg Academy of Art. In Stern, Rachel and Ori Z. Soltes, Eds. To Live is to Blaze with Passion: The Expressionist Fritz Ascher/ Leben ist Glühn: Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Wienand 2016, pp. 64–69. Among others, the artist befriended Eduard Bischoff, who painted a portrait of him in 1912.
Back in Berlin around 1913, Ascher studied in the painting schools of Lovis Corinth, Adolf Meyer and Curt Agthe. He was active in the networks of the Berlin avant-garde, and knew many artists personally. Influenced by Expressionist artists such as the older Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde and Wassily Kandinsky, and his contemporaries Max Beckmann, Georges Rouault and Ludwig Meidner, Ascher found his very own artistic language. He traveled extensively and started exhibiting his work. In 1914, Ascher and his friend and fellow painter Franz Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis) presumably traveled to Norway and met Edvard Munch in Oslo. During a longer stay in Bavaria and Munich in 1919 Domscheit (Pranas Domšaitis) drew into Aschers sketchbook and Ascher drew a portrait of his friend. Ascher met the artists of the Blue Rider and befriended the artists of the satirical German weekly magazine Simplicissimus, among them Gustav Meyrink, Alfred Kubin, George Grosz and Käthe Kollwitz.
Ascher's expressive strokes and intense colors with descriptive outlines and areal color combine elements of Expressionism with those of Symbolism. His early work is very multifaceted in themes, the techniques used and the style of painting. The result is a fascinating field of tension between small intimate graphite drawings and large-format polychrome figural compositions, between portraits and biblical scenes, character and milieu studies or between representations of literary and allegorical figures. At the same time, he responded to contemporary themes, such as the street fights of the November Revolution of 1918.
The artist now created some of his most important work, among them "Lone Man" ("Der Vereinsamte") from c. 1914, his very new interpretation of the crucifixion, "Golgotha" (1915), the Jewish myth "Golem" (1916),in the collection of the Jewish Museum Berlin his "Bajazzo and Artists" ("Bajazzo und Artisten") from 1916/1945, and his powerful portrait of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1924/1945).
1933–1945
On 30 January 1933 Hitler assumed power. As Modern painter and Jewish-born, Ascher could no longer produce, exhibit, or sell his art. He hid among friends in Berlin and Potsdam, constantly changing his residence.Both the Potsdam Museum – Forum für Kunst und Geschichte, Potsdam, and Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin, researched the addresses and neighborhoods in which Ascher found refuge 1933–1945, for their exhibitions in 2017/18. During the Pogroms on 9–10 November 1938, Ascher was arrested and interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the Potsdam Gestapo prison.Sachsenhausen 4094051#1. For the conditions at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp see Harry Naujoks, Mein Leben im KZ Sachsenhausen 1936–1945. Erinnerungen des damaligen Lagerältesten, Berlin 1989. The history of the Potsdam Gestapo prison was researched in Homann, Iris and Uta Gerlant (Ed.). "Sechs Wochen sind fast wie lebenslänglich…" Das Potsdamer Polizeigefängnis Priesterstrasse/Bauhofstrasse." Exhibition catalogue. Potsdam, Stiftung Gedenkstätte Lindenstrasse (2017). Potsdam 2018. Released six months later, he survived the Nazi terror regime hiding in a cellar of a partially bombed-out building in the wealthy Grunewald neighborhood in Berlin.Martha Graßmann described: Fritz Ascher "hid in a tiny space in my part of the basement. During air raids he was locked in the super’s potato cellar." EA 2060, B7. During this time he wrote poems about love and the divine, and tributes to his artistic role models. In other poems, he turned to a new theme: they evoke nature as a place of refuge and a spiritual home.This was not an unusual reaction. See Eckhart Gillen, Painting as Confirmation of One’s Own Existence, in Rachel Stern and Ori Z. Soltes, Eds. To Live is to Blaze with Passion: The Expressionist Fritz Ascher/ Leben ist Glühn: Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Wienand 2016, pp. 130–151. These poems give a glimpse into the artist's innermost feelings and can be understood as "unpainted paintings."Jutta Götzmann, director of Potsdam Museum in 2018. The war was almost over when on 25 April 1945 bombs destroyed most of the artwork that Ascher had left with friends.EA 2060, D40.
Late work After Hitler's defeat, Ascher continued to live in Berlin Grunewald, with Martha Graßmann, who hid him 1942–1945,For saving Fritz Ascher's life, Martha Graßmann was recognized as "Righteous Among The Nations" by Yad Vashem. at Bismarckallee 26. Withdrawn from society, he threw himself into his work.This conspicuous retreat to a theme—nature—to the style of Expressionism, which was no longer considered relevant after 1945, his demonstrative turn away from the city, society, people and their plots and political intrigues, all of Fritz Ascher’s decisions are basically the appeals of someone stripped of his trust in humanity and grappling with trusting himself. Eckhart Gillen, Painting as Confirmation of One’s Own Existence, in Rachel Stern and Ori Z. Soltes, Eds. To Live is to Blaze with Passion: The Expressionist Fritz Ascher/ Leben ist Glühn: Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher. Exhibition catalogue. Cologne: Wienand 2016, pp. 130–151. Karl Ellwanger remembered, "When he worked, he seemed to be in a trance, he was almost not there. My presence did not disturb his work. He would walk the length of the room, adding a brushstroke and then walking back, a constant back and forth – it was impossible to follow him."Karl Ellwanger on 26 July 1990. His studio was a large semi-circle room with adjoining winter garden. During the winter, when the studio could not be heated, Ascher created works on paper: ink drawings, watercolors and gouaches. 1952/53 he had a phase of most intense work.EA 2060, B24 Again and again phases of tremendous creative productivity were interrupted by times of depression.
Initially he painted over some of his early work,See "Forest" (c. 1920/1945), "Bajazzo and Artists" (1916/1945), or "Beethoven" (1924/1945). but soon he focused mainly on landscapes, only sometimes drawing people from memory. Living close to the Grunewald, Berlin's expansive city forest, the artist observed and painted nature in different light, at different day-times and seasons, which he re-created in his studio. He painted powerful images of trees and meadows, sunrises and sunsets, all devoid of human presence, in which sun and light are a dominant force. With these paintings, Ascher continued the intense contact with nature begun in his poems.
Ascher worked with renewed immediacy and urgency, dramatically simplifying forms and medium. His thick, bright pigments suggest both vibrant, life-affirming joy and, in the rough-hewn nature of his brushstrokes, a dark, inner anguish transformed into light. The emotional narratives of his early work were replaced by economical landscape images and stylized flowers and trees, single-mindedly repeated at an intimate scale. Near-obsession combined with close observation and an appreciation of nuance. Especially the trees, singly or in rows, in groups of two or three, became standing figures that confront us, each as unmistakable as each individual.Wilkin, Karen. Beauteous Strivings: Fritz Ascher, Works on Paper. Introduction Rachel Stern. Exhibition catalogue. New York, New York Studio School. New York 2017, pp. 10–12.
Fritz Ascher died on 26 March 1970,Graveside Ascher/ Graßmann Dep. 11 W no. 15, State-owned cemetery Wannsee, Friedenstraße. The graveside was later leveled. in Berlin.
Legacy During his lifetime, Ascher enjoyed only one large retrospective exhibition, which opened at Berlin's Rudolf Springer Gallery in 1969, a few months before his death. Since 2016, exhibitions and publications are introducing the artist to the public. On 21 February 2018 a Stolperstein (stumbling block) for Fritz Ascher was placed at Niklasstrasse 21–23 in Berlin-Zehlendorf.
Exhibitions Fritz Ascher was a member of the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler Berlins (1946–1970).
2024 - "Liebe und Verrat. Der Expressionist Fritz Ascher aus New Yorker Privatsammlungen". Curators: Jutta Götzmann and Rachel Stern. Haus der Graphischen Sammlung im Augustinermuseum Freiburg, 8 November 2024 - 2 March 2025. 2022 – "Identity, Art and Migration. Seven Artists persecuted by German Nazis 1933-1945". Curators: Ori Z Soltes and Rachel Stern. Online exhibition https://migration.fritzaschersociety.org, 27 February 2022 – 27 February 2027 2021 – "Fritz Ascher: Themes and Variations. A Digital Exhibition Experience." Curator Elizabeth Berkowitz. Online exhibition https://fritzaschersociety.org/exhibition-event/fritz-ascher-themes-and-variations-a-digifas-digital-exhibition-experience/, 30 September 2021 – 30 September 2024 2020 – "Der Vereinsamte. Propheten und Clowns in der Kunst Fritz Aschers (1893–1970)." / "The Loner. Prophets and Clowns in Fritz Ascher’s Art (1893–1970)". Forum Jacob Pins, Höxter, 6 September – 29 November 2020 – "Fritz Ascher, Expressionist." Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond, Richmond (VA), 16 January – 24 May 2019 – "Im Reich der Nummern. Wo die Männer keine Namen haben./In the Country of Numbers. Where the Men have no Names". Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Sachsenhausen, 29 January – 31 July 2019 – "Fritz Ascher, Expressionist." Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, 9 January – 6 April 2018–19 – "Umkämpfte Wege der Moderne. Wilhelm Schmid und die Novembergruppe." Potsdam Museum – Forum für Kunst und Geschichte, Potsdam, 29 September 2018 – 27 January 2019