Lot 1: Frieda Hunziker , 1908-1966 Rood - Bruin oil on canvas

signed on the strecher on the reverse oil on canvas

100 by 135 cm.

Galerie Witteveen, Amsterdam

Painted in 1955.
".....At the end of the 1930s, Hunziker started painting. After World War Two, her work developed from a simplified kind of realism, in which the natural perspective was suppressed, moving into complete abstraction. The compositions from those days are characterized by big and in pasto hastily painted geometrical elements; the mood is mature.

In 1947, she exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, together with eleven other artists, among whom, Willy Boers, Ger Gerrits, Wim Kersten and Harry van Kruiningen. In the same year, these exhibitors formed the group Vrij Beelden. Vrij Beelden (1946 - 1955) was the first group of artists in the Netherlands which aimed at a more abstract (free) manner of painting. Within this group, close relations existed with members of the better known Experimentele Groep, from which the international CoBrA movement originated in 1948. Hunziker was one of the most active members of the group Vrij Beelden, giving many lectures and tours, always striving to get the aspirations of the group universally accepted.

Initially, Hunziker thought the value of abstract art mostly to be in the intuitive representation of the inner state of mind and invisible harmonies, according to the traditions of pre-war abstract avant-garde. Thus, at the Biennale of São Paolo in 1953, Hunziker's work - abstract and composed from an intuitive sense of structure and colour - was shown along with that of the pioneers of abstract art: Piet Mondriaan, Bart van der Leck and Theo van Doesburg. From the mid-1950s onwards however, Hunziker's work became more 'extrovert'.

Hunziker is regarded as an important and progressive Dutch artist, whose work has been included in many national and international exhibitions concerning Dutch post-war abstract expressionism."
(from: Marty Bax a.o., Vrij Beelden en Creatie, Bussum 1995, p.56)

Group exhibitions: Kunst in vrijheid, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1945 / 12 Schilders, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1946 / De Kunst gaat door het vrije land: Twaalf moderne schilders, Kunstlievend Genootschap Pictura, Groningen, 1946 (ook in Modelhuis, Zwolle) / Vrij Beelden: 12 Schilders en 2 invité's, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1947 / 12 Nederlandse schilders, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1947 / Amsterdamse schilders van nu, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1948 / Experimentelen, Haagsche Kunstkring, Den Haag, 1948 / 3υe Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parijs, 1948 / Vrij Beelden, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1948 / 4υe Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parijs, 1949 / Vrij Beelden, Museum Fodor, Amsterdam, 1949 / Nieuwe Stromingen, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1950 / Amsterdamse schilders van nu, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1950 / 5υe Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Parijs, 1950 / Vrij Beelden, Museum Fodor, Amsterdam, 1950 / Vrij Beelden, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1950 - 1951 (ook bij Vrij Beelden, Galerie Le Canard, Amsterdam, 1950 - 1951) / Vrij Beelden, Museum Fodor, Amsterdam, 1952 / Vrij Beelden, Museum Fodor, Amsterdam, 1953 (ook bij Museum Het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, 1953) / Architectuur en Beeldende Kunst (Liga Nieuw Beelden), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1955

Solo exhibitions : Frieda Hunziker (1908 - 1966), De Waag, Almelo, 1983