Lot 22
FRITZ BRANDTNER (1896-1969)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Fraser Bros. Ltd. Auctioneers, Montreal, QC, Sept. 1975;
Private collection, Montreal, QC
Note:
Fritz Brandtner was a trailblazer for abstraction in Canada. Having immigrated from Germany to Winnipeg in 1928, Brandtner brought the ideas of the German Expressionists to Western and Central Canada and was the first artist to exhibit abstract art in Montreal in 1936.
Masterfully composed with encaustic paint and string, this painting demonstrates Brandtner’s commitment to experimentation. String as a medium fascinated Brandtner, and he looked at it through a theoretical lens. In one of Brandtner’s journals, now housed in the Fritz Brandtner Library at the National Gallery of Canada, Brandtner writes: “five minutes of honest relaxation playing with brush and paper or a piece of wire or a piece of string can be a better therapy [than] any psychiatrists can prescribe.”