ADOLF RICHARD FLEISCHMANN 
German (1892-1968) 
"Comp #523" 
oil oncanvas, signed "Fleischmann", dated "1961", and inscribed

"New York" on the reverse. 
36 x 29 inches 

 

 

 

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Born in 1892 in Essligen, Germany, Adolf Richard Fleischmann was an important German abstract artist whose artistic accomplishments took place in both Paris and New York.

 

From 1908 to 1913, Fleischmann studied in Stuttgart at the Royal School of Applied Arts and then at the Royal Academy of Art. Towards the end of the 1930s, his compositions developed into a rigid geometry as he painted his typical L- shaped forms. His exclusive use of horizontal and vertical lines, showing similarities to Mondrian’s ‘neo-plasticism,’ formed Fleischmann into an abstract artist. It was as such that he appeared at the 1945 Paris Salon des Surindépendants.

 

In 1952 Fleischmann left Europe and moved to New York for the next ten years, where he worked as a scientific artist at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York.  In 1958, returned to Europe to visit. It was during this period that he developed a subtle change in the severity of his geometric style in favor of looser lines, stripes and figurations. As before, he remained committed to the geometry, but his images were softer.

 

The current example, "Comp #523", painted in 1961, is a prime example of the work he produced during the period of time he was in New York during the 1960s. While the lines and L-shaped forms are present, there is a certain softness to his design that was not present in earlier works.

In 1965 Fleischmann returned to Germany, where he died in 1968. In 1973, the first large Adolf Fleischmann retrospective was held at the Ulmer Museum in Germany. Fleischmann is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art New York.