Wols

Exhibition at Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, 6 May - 29 July 2023

Photographer, engraver, painter and graphic artist, close to Surrealism, musician and poet, Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, known as Wols (1913-1951), is considered a pioneer of European lyrical abstraction and a major representative of Tachism and Informal Art in Europe. He arrived in Paris in 1933, fleeing the rise of Nazism in Germany, and was interned in the Camp de Milles in 1940 and 1941. His despair over the war and fear of the authorities led him to Dieulefit, in the Drôme, where he lived in semi-clandestinity until the end of the war. Through his Aphorismes, Wols expresses his desolation at the human condition and the ravages of war. A solitary artist who preferred the infinite freedom of his imagination, he always remained aloof from contemporary artistic groups and movements.

This exhibition catalogue illustrates the importance of Wols's singular art through the largest group of works on canvas and paper, photographs, printed works and letters ever assembled in France, from the Karsten Greve collection as well as important private collections.