Adolf Richard Fleischmann (1892-1968)

‘The lofty ideal of our [German] Academy of Arts which expressed itself in painstaking naturalism in the meticulous reproduction of muscular attitudes of nudes or of the horse, which to that effect was forced into the very court of our noble institution, was soon forgotten after I left it for the commercial world of poster painting. Besides my work, I became most interested in the painting of German Expressionists, and then of the Cubist school which struck me violently enough to attract me to Paris. But, for the sake of a wider artistic panorama, I undertook a series of study-travels through Europe, especially Italy and Spain. In spite of the impact of these unforgettable artistic experiences, I became gradually convinced that renunciation of all objective content was the only way to meet the artistic (if not the very cultural) demands of our days. By 1937 my paintings exclusively reflected my abstract ideal and I first produced works where curves and sentiments predominated. That I came nearer to the neo-plastic current was neither a matter of conscious Mondrian influence nor a deliberate choice between the fantastic number of possibilities which, as I always insistently realize, lies within the reach of non-objective art, but one step in a slow evolution. My paintings are not, as it might appear, the product of ruler, compass, and precise planning, but a variation of a mental sketch which I adapt to my actuality as I am painting it. The sketches which I draw are more of an exercise, the riddance of a linear obsession, than a map for future reference. Thus, I attempt, by the differentiated power of vibration of surfaces and by the quality of colors, but using always the same shape, to give my works among other things the quality of space’ – Adolf Fleischmann