Bowdoin College Museum of Art | - untitled (Tree [L'Arbre])

Image of untitled (Tree [L'Arbre]) 13011

Artist

Wols (Alfred Otto-Wolfgang Schülze Wols) (1913 - 1951)

Title

untitled (Tree [L'Arbre])

Creation Date

ca. 1946-1947

Century

mid-20th century

Dimensions

16 1/8 in. x 13 1/8 in. (40.96 cm x 33.34 cm)

Classification

Paintings

Creation Place

Europe, Germany

Medium and Support

oil on canvas

Credit Line

Bequest of William H. Alexander, in memory of his mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. William Homer Alexander

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

2003.11.86

The prodigiously talented German draftsman and photographer Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, or Wols, moved to Paris in 1932, where he quickly found friends among Surrealist circles. Throughout the 1930s and his internment during World War II, Wols created drawings and watercolors that responded to unconscious impulses with seismographic sensitivity. It was only in 1946 that Wols took up oil painting. His experimental gestural paint application and unconventional surface treatment with scratches and splatters was immediately recognized as a major innovation. At the time, Wols socialized with the likes of Alberto Giacometti, Jean-Paul Sartre, and other intellectuals and artists who planted new seeds for European culture at a time of devastation and trauma.

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