Fritz Bleyl

Hilmar Friedrich Wilhelm Bleyl, known as Fritz Bleyl (8 October 1880 – 19 August 1966), was a German artist of the Expressionist school, and one of the four founders of artist group Die Brücke ("The Bridge"). He designed graphics for the group including, for their first show, a poster. He left the group already after two year (in 1907) and continued to teach and to practice as an architect. He also continued with graphic work, but kept it out of public gaze.

Fritz Bleyl, 1906: 'Brücke', lithographic poster for the first Die Brücke exhibition in Dresden, 1906 quote of Fritz Bleyl, c. 1906: '.she stands somewhat uneasily, with her arms out and knees bent, as if she is balancing. Shadows play over her body and highlight her womanly figure.'

Quotes of Fritz Bleyl

• one day [c. 1905-07], Kirchner brought with him a volume from some bookstore with pictures of Meier-Graefe about the modern French artists. We were enthralled.
  • Fritz Bleyl, as quoted in: Brücke' Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Druckgraphik, Magdalena M. Moeller; Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart 1992, p. 14; as quoted by Louise Albiez (incl. translation), Brücke und Berlin: 100 Jahre Expressionismus; submitted to the Division of Humanities New College of Florida, Sarasota, Florida, May, 2013 p. 8

• ..without any deformation caused by the silly fashion of the corset.. .she stands somewhat uneasily, with her arms out and knees bent, as if she is balancing. Shadows play over her body and highlight her womanly figure.
  • c. 1906; as quoted in Ernst Kirchner's Streetwalkers: Art, Luxury, and Immorality in Berlin, 1913 - 1916, Simmons, Sherwin, in 'The Art Bulletin', Vol. 82, No. 1. March 2000, p. 121
  • Bleyl stated that he favored this model Isabella due to her natural body. Using only two tones of yellow in the poster, Bleyl was able to impart a clear sense of this woman's physique. It is precisely this that got Bleyl in trouble: the police censored this image because they saw pubic hair in the shadow below the belly, apparently giving it an inappropriate sexual power

Quotes about Fritz Bleyl

• But the four young men who had founded the Brücke in Dresden in the preceding year were not especially interested in theory. Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff were between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age in 1905; all were students of architecture and in any generally accepted sense purely self-taught as artists.
  • Alexander Dückers in 'Portfolios', in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 67