Lothar Fischer

About Work

Lothar Fischer is one of the most important sculptors in Germany after the Second World War. 

His oeuvre can be divided into different work phases: from his student days at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (1953 - 1958) to the years with the Munich groups SPUR (1957 - 1965) and GEFLECHT, the phase influenced by Pop Art (1966 - 1968) and the Hüllen-Plastiken (1969-1974). With the beginning of his professorship for sculpture at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin in 1975, Fischer's work formally became more characterised by rigour and unity. Subsequently, organic construction and transparency as well as the theme of variation crystallised as essential characteristics of his visual language. Despite the different creative phases, Lothar Fischer's oeuvre reveals itself as a convincing unity. 

At the beginning of his studies, he orientated himself artistically towards his teachers, the sculptor Heinrich Kirchner and the academy professor Toni Stadler. From 1957, he developed artistic independence in the artists' group SPUR, which he founded with three other academy graduates, the painters Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm and HP Zimmer, at the end of his studies. Through their provocative art-political activities, the distribution of flyers, manifestos and magazines, the protagonists of the group provoked violent reactions from the state and the judiciary in Bavaria. However, the group made a significant contribution to the mood of artistic awakening in Germany. By analysing the work of Wassily Kandinsky, the pictorial structure of Cubism, the painting process of Art Informel, the work of Max Beckmann and the dynamics of Baroque pictorial space, the artists found an independent pictorial language that combined the figurative with the abstract. In 1965, however, the SPUR group increasingly questioned its own pictorial content. SPUR hoped to gain new impetus through its collaboration with the WIR group, and in 1966 the two artist communities gave themselves the joint name GEFLECHT and began constructing relief-like spatial sculptures (anti-objects). "Op-Bob", 1966, is one of Fischer's few works from this phase. He left the group shortly after its foundation. In 1968, the GEFLECHT group disbanded in the wake of the student movement because there was no agreement on the question of whether the artistic impetus should be increasingly translated into political action. 

In the mid-1960s, even before the GEFLECHT period, the influence of Pop Art from America and England became increasingly noticeable in Fischer's work. This is evidenced by his two painted clay sculptures "Kartenspieler"(card players) and "Nächtliches Bad" (nighttime bath) from 1966 as well as the clay moulded and subsequently painted "Große Tube" from 1968. Lothar Fischer later remarked that he "found Pop difficult to cope with at times", but looking back, the hollow tube form was an important step in his development towards the work period he himself referred to as the Hüllenphase (shell or envelope phase). Works such as "Reclining Maja I", 1969, demonstrate how he explored the envelope as a pictorial form and how the clay surface regained its vitality and sensuality. Fischer´s Hüllenphase lasted until the mid-1970s.

The beginning of Lothar Fischer's university career in Berlin in 1975 marked the start of a new creative phase for him, which he himself described as "Idole - Konzeption, Strenge und Geschlossenheit 1975-1985". He now developed his so-called artistic figures, which do not depict reality but are created parallel to nature. This is also his credo: "To create means not to depict. My main subject is the human being in his or her basic postures: Standing - sitting - lying, understood as an artistic figure". The playful creative process was now giving way to a more constructive, controlled approach. In addition, Lothar Fischer artistically tied in on a prehistoric and early historical image of man and was inspired by archaic forms, so that his sculptures always appeared strange and enigmatic. From then on Lothar Fischer increasingly casted works in bronze and iron. Bronze is the more pliable material, which is generally used for small-scale, more detailed works. The large sculptures for outdoor use, on the other hand, were mostly made in iron, as the sand casting process used here was technically better suited to less detailed, large-scale works. Lothar Fischer later developed several iron grids using the same process, such as "Tier im Arm I"(Animal in the Arm), 1991, which he drew directly into the sand without first making a model. 

In the mid-1980s, Lothar Fischer abandoned the strict forms of his works in favour of organic, spontaneous constructions and interweavings. His handling of the material also became more playful; his sculptures increasingly featured openings and vistas and thus appeared more transparent. In 1996/1997, after winning a competition, Lothar Fischer realised the eight unique larger-than-life bronze pieces "Enigma Variations" at Meßberghof in Hamburg. Both the cast models made of plaster and polystyrene - Fischer regarded them as autonomous sculptures - and the models submitted for the competition are now on display in the Museum Lothar Fischer. 

Parallel to his sculptural oeuvre, the artist left behind an impressive body of graphic work, ranging from children's drawings and academy drawings to watercolours and gouaches from the SPUR period, to pop graphics and the extensive collection of brush and ink drawings created between 1975 and 2003. His interest in sketching is also evident in his 72 sketchbooks, which he filled with over 6,000 drawings from 1967 until shortly before his death in 2004. "Drawing," said Fischer, "is an almost daily exercise for me and has accompanied my sculptural path for decades."