Fleischmann, Adolf

Description:

Esslingen, 1892 - Stuttgart, 1968
99 x 81 cm, R.
Composition with blue circle, 1961. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated in oil lower center as well as signed, dated and inscribed "New York", "# 402" in colored pencil on the reverse.
Wedewer, O 298.
Galerie Döbele, Stuttgart.
Collection Monika and Horst Bülow, Leonberg, acquired there in 1987.
Exhibition:
Parma Gallery, New York.
Kunstkabinett Emden, Emden 1964.
Städtisches Museum Landolinshof, Esslingen 1964.
Galerie Moderne Kunst der Bücherstube am Dom, Köln 1967.
Galerie d'Art Moderne, Basel 1967.
"Adolf Fleischmann, 1892 - 1968, Retrospektive", Moderne Galerie des Saarlandmuseums, Saarbrücken 1987 - 1988, p. 123 (with exhibition label on the reverse).
Literature:
"Kunst und Künstler in Württemberg", Stuttgart 1996, p. 136.
Adolf Fleischmann is among the major, today rediscovered protagonists of international postwar abstraction. With his characteristic vocabulary of rhythmically arranged colour bars and precisely composed geometric structures, he developed a distinctive pictorial language that placed him in the New York of the 1950s and 1960s in close proximity to artists such as Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, and other representatives of Hard Edge painting.
The 1961 painting "Composition with blue circle" impresses not only through its complexity but also through its generous format of 99 × 81 cm, which lends it monumental presence. Against a deep black ground unfolds a dense grid of vertically staggered bars, modulated in shades of blue. At the center appears a circle, subtly emerging from the structure and intersected by accents of red, yellow, and white. In this concentrated order of colour and form, the work acquires a vibrant tension oscillating between strict geometry and pulsating rhythm.
Fleischmann’s painting is deeply shaped by musical thinking: he understood his compositions as visual scores, where repetition and variation, beat and counter-rhythm determine pictorial space. "Composition with blue circle" demonstrates the perfect balance between order and movement - a painting at once constructively precise and vividly alive.
For collectors, this work carries particular significance. It was created in New York, where Fleischmann lived and worked between 1952 and 1965. Works from this period were shown in important exhibitions, including at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. With the signature and the work number “#402” on the reverse, the painting is clearly documented and firmly situated in art history.
"Composition with blue circle" thus belongs to the key works that establish Fleischmann’s rank within the international avant-garde of the 1960s. With its clear formal language, intense chromatic effect, large-scale presence, and museum quality, it represents a central work of geometric abstraction.