You want to be alarmed for any new work by this artist ? Enter your email address to get an alarm
Otto Wols
"I do not see the difference in representing God with a circle or with a straight line."
+ Stamp
Stamp by Otto Wols
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ Watch
Watch
+ A tribute to...
See all the tribute pages...
A tribute to Otto Wols
Sorry this section is only available in french for now.
Victime d’une intoxication alimentaire, Otto Wols est mal, et trop tard, soigné. Déjà fragilisé par son alcoolisme, se voyant mourir, il se fait amener par un ami dans le luxueux hôtel de Montalembert (Paris) ; il meurt le lendemain matin, 1er septembre 1951. Son cadavre est enlevé par la porte de service. L'enterrement de l’artiste qui n’avait pas encore 40 ans aura lieu 3 jours plus tard dans le columbarium du Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Nous y déposons, en son hommage, quelques roses blanches.
"L'image peut avoir une relation avec la nature comme la fugue de Bach au Christ. Alors, ce n'est pas une imitation, mais une création analogue." - Otto Wols
"Les peintures de Wols ont pour sujet la présence, alors que ses photographies ont pour thème le côtoiement de l'absence." - Christine Mehring
"Wols compose et encadre ces miettes de nourriture comme aucun autre photographe, combinant la clarté de l'éclairage du Bauhaus avec les thèmes viscéraux due surréalisme." - Kim Sichel
"Wols était fasciné par les pommes de terre qu’il conservait depuis fort longtemps dans sa cuisine et qui était couverte de petits appendices blanc et violet qui poussaient." - Jean-Paul Cleber
"Si tu réussissais à voir jusqu’au fond d’une chose, tu verrais qu’il est le même que celui de ton propre moi." - Otto Wols
"Voir est fermer les yeux." - Otto Wols
Notes of biography
Alfred Wolfgang Schulze, later takes the pseudonyme Otto Wols, was born in Berlin in 1913. In 1931, he studies photography from Genja Jonas in Dresde. In 1932, Otto Wols studies Ethnologhy in Frankfurt and signs up with the Bauhaus in Berlin where he meets Gropius, Mies Van de Rohe and Moholy-Nagy who advises him about Léger and Ozenfant.
He arrives in Paris in 1933 where he works as a photographer to earn his living. He joins the surrealists, becomes friends with Miro, Ernst, Tanguy, Brauner, Tzara and Calder. From these friendships are born small scale works of watercolor and Chinese inks. In 1935, he refuses to fulfill his German military service and spends 3 months in prison.
His first solo exhibition is organized in 1936, and he takes the pseudonym of Wols in 1937. The following year the artist decides to make the work of a lifetime, a total work of art, to mix art, science, philosophy and life; he is friends with Sartre, Jean Paulhan, Merleau-Ponty. During the war, because of his German immigrant status, he is places in a civil internment camp from September 1939 until Christmas 1940. He will leave crushed, somber with depression which he will never shake. Entirely consecrating his life to painting, he confides in the write Kay Boyle a hundred watercolors that she shows in the Untied States. An exhibition is organized in New York in 1941.
In 1942 he takes refuge in Dieulefit where despite the protection of Henri-Pierre Roche he is lost to alcohol. His painting becomes brutal, automatic, and existential. Otto Wols invents Tachism, during Europe of Action Painting American of Jackson Pollock. In 1946 he paints ‘Forty moments of the Crucifixion of Man’.
At the juncture of expressionism and surrealism, painter of imagination at times visionary and hallucinating, Otto Wols died in 1951 in Paris.
Artists on display
The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.
Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.
We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.
Complete work(s)
Complete work(s)
*« Das Druckgraphische Werke », par Ralf Busch, Ed. Christians, Hambourg, 2004
*« Otto Wols », C. R. en préparation, Marc Johennes
Bibliographic track and more
To read about the artist :
- L'Art informel », Jean Paulhan, Ed. Gallimard, 1962
- « En personne… », Jean-Paul Sartre & autres, Ed. Robert Delpire, 1963
- « Wols », cat. d'expo., Ed. Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanovre, 1978
- « Wols, sa vie . . . », E. Rathke, Goethe Institut, Paris, 1986
- « Photographs, watercolours, etchings », Inst. Für Auslandsbeziehungen, 1988
- « Wols », cat. d'exposition, Fondation Joan Miro, Barcelone, 1988
- « Wols », cat. d'exposition, Galerie Karsten Grave, Paris, 1998
- « Wols », J-J., Lévêque, Ed. Ides et Calendes, 2002
- « Wols, le tachiste transfiguré », Marc Alyn, Ed. Bartillat, 2007
- « Otto Wols (1913-1951», cat. Paris Drouot Richelieu, 2011
To read from the artist :
- « Wols, aquarelle, aphorismen », Werner Haffmann Ed., Cologne, 1963
- « Wols, Aphorismes », Hans-Joachim Petersen, Ed. Flammarion, 2010
Website :
www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/wols.htmlMore :
+ Stamp
Stamp by Otto Wols
fictional stamp
The publication of a postal stamp is often a homage paid by a nation to a place, an event, a remarkable cause or a character which count. The painters and other artists do not escape from this rule. Some are however "forgotten" of postal art. Here, gathered below (French or foreign), emitted stamps (206) or simple studies of stamp (224) in homage to the artists represented on our website. The first French stamp was emitted in 1849, England preceded us by ten years. There is often a share of voyage in this small form of shape paper. The stamp circulates, sails, flies away, it makes dream, then dream a little. M.C.
When the stamp is really emitted, the artist name is preceded of an asterisk (*). It is certain that we do not know each stamp emitted for such or such artist; do not hesitate with us to make known them!
Discover all the stamps
+ Watch
Watch
+ A tribute to...
See all the tribute pages...
A tribute to Otto Wols
Sorry this section is only available in french for now.
Victime d’une intoxication alimentaire, Otto Wols est mal, et trop tard, soigné. Déjà fragilisé par son alcoolisme, se voyant mourir, il se fait amener par un ami dans le luxueux hôtel de Montalembert (Paris) ; il meurt le lendemain matin, 1er septembre 1951. Son cadavre est enlevé par la porte de service. L'enterrement de l’artiste qui n’avait pas encore 40 ans aura lieu 3 jours plus tard dans le columbarium du Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Nous y déposons, en son hommage, quelques roses blanches.
"L'image peut avoir une relation avec la nature comme la fugue de Bach au Christ. Alors, ce n'est pas une imitation, mais une création analogue." - Otto Wols
"Les peintures de Wols ont pour sujet la présence, alors que ses photographies ont pour thème le côtoiement de l'absence." - Christine Mehring
"Wols compose et encadre ces miettes de nourriture comme aucun autre photographe, combinant la clarté de l'éclairage du Bauhaus avec les thèmes viscéraux due surréalisme." - Kim Sichel
"Wols était fasciné par les pommes de terre qu’il conservait depuis fort longtemps dans sa cuisine et qui était couverte de petits appendices blanc et violet qui poussaient." - Jean-Paul Cleber
"Si tu réussissais à voir jusqu’au fond d’une chose, tu verrais qu’il est le même que celui de ton propre moi." - Otto Wols
"Voir est fermer les yeux." - Otto Wols
Art movements
+ LYRIC ART, ABSTRACT, TACHISM / 1950-1960 / Jackson Pollock, Emil Schumacher, etc.
+ PHOTOGRAPHY BETWEEN WARS / 1918-1939 / Robert Tatlin, Alexandre Rodchenko, etc.
All art movements
See & discover
Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.
These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier
See & discover