Erich Buchholz (1891-1972): Composition 1920

Artist
Erich Buchholz (1891–1972)
 
Title
Composition 1920
 
Medium
Woodcut
 
Material
Paper
 
Dimensions
28 x 28 cm
 
Editor
Edition Panderma, Basel
 
Year
1920
 
Signature
Signed in pencil
 
Provenance
Edition Panderma, Carl Laszlo, Basel
Galerie von Bartha, Basel
Private Collection, Basel
 
Condition / Restauration
Mint archival condition
 
Biography
Erich Buchholz (1891–1972) ranks among the pioneers of non-objective art in Berlin. Born in Bromberg (today Bydgoszcz, Poland), he trained and worked as a schoolteacher before committing himself fully to painting in 1914. Returning to Berlin after the First World War, he turned decisively toward abstraction, designing abstract stage sets and producing a celebrated series of painted woodblocks. His first solo exhibition took place in 1921 at Herwarth Walden's legendary Galerie Der Sturm.
 
Between 1918 and 1924 Buchholz stood at the very center of the city's avant-garde. His studio at Herkulesufer 15 became a gathering point for figures such as Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters, Raoul Hausmann, Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling, and is often cited as one of the earliest fully abstract three-dimensional interior environments in art history. At the 1922 exhibition of Constructivism and Suprematism at the Van Diemen Gallery he formed lasting ties with László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky and other constructivists, aligning his geometric vocabulary with the international movement.
 
Economic hardship forced Buchholz to leave Berlin in 1925, and from 1933 the National Socialists branded his work "degenerate," barring him from painting and exhibiting. He resumed his practice in 1945 and, during the 1950s and 1960s, was rediscovered through numerous solo exhibitions and museum retrospectives across Europe and the United States. He died in West Berlin in 1972, recognized as one of the most rigorous early voices of German concrete art.