Fritz Bleyl, Pillnitz Castle
1905, watercolor, 21 x 23.1 cm, indicated at the bottom-right corner: FB, below Fritz Bleyl
Inv. no. V/67/156/K2, 1966 Donation
Together with his friends Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Fritz Bleyl – born in Zwickau – founded the artist group ‘Brücke’ (The Bridge) in Dresden in 1905. The young men studied architecture at the Technical University of Dresden. However, they preferred to live as free artists and, as a group, they hoped to gain a stronger foothold in the art community. In the beginning the group represented art nouveau and French impressionism – particularly shown by the early works of Bleyl. Though later on ‘Brücke’ turned to expressionist painting. Bleyl already left the group in 1907. He was not able or willing to take the step of radical simplification as the expressionism of the ‘Brücke’ suggests.