Fugue around the festival (1976) Printmaking by Johnyy Friedlaender

Johnny Friedlaender (German, 1912–1992) was an artist best known for his pioneering use of aquatint etching. Born in Pless in the former German kingdom of Prussia, Friedlaender attended the Academy of Arts in Breslau, where he studied lithography and etching under Expressionist artist Otto Mueller.

In 1930, he moved to Dresden, where his work was included in group exhibitions at Galerie J. Sandel and, in 1936, he traveled to Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Austria, France, and Belgium.

Friedlaender spent most of his adult life in Paris, after fleeing Nazi Germany in  1937.

Although Johnny Friedlaender pursued watercolor and oil painting throughout his career, describing himself as a “painter who engraves,” his artistic legacy centers on color printmaking, techniques of which he pioneered. 

His early black-and-white prints drew heavily on Surrealism and Expressionism, executing phantasmorgic visions of animals and human figures, as in Cheval (1940), an aquatint etching of a horse leaping up towards the moon. Friedlaender’s abstracted portrayals of nature as a majestic, mystical force have been likened to Caspar David Friedrich’s transcendent landscapes, which he admired dearly. 

As his style matured, Freidlaender rejected the gestural abandon of Expressionism, fully embracing a precise style of abstraction. He became known for musically oriented compositions of delicate forms and symbols in a harmonious palette.  

• Nationality: POLAND
• Date of birth : 1912
• Artistic domains: Represented by a Gallery,
• Groups: Contemporary Polish Artists Artists presented by a gallery