Johnny FRIEDLAENDER

Johnny Friedlaender – Biography, Colour Etchings, Aquatints and Original Prints

Johnny Friedlaender (born Gotthard Joachim Friedlaender in Pless, Upper Silesia, now Pszczyna in Poland, in 1912; died in Paris on 18 June 1992) is widely recognised as one of the outstanding colour printmakers of the twentieth century. Trained in the German Expressionist tradition, persecuted by the Nazis, a refugee in Paris from 1937 and a French citizen from 1952, he turned the colour aquatint into a medium of its own: hovering birds, fish, plant forms and cosmic signs set in a soft, luminous ground somewhere between lyrical abstraction and Surrealist reverie. His Paris workshop trained a whole generation of etchers, and his printed output, catalogued by Rolf Schmücking, runs to several hundred plates.

Le Coin des Arts holds a selection of his colour etchings and aquatints spanning three decades, among them Maternité (1955), Poisson V (1959), Ombres errantes (1969), Oiseau dans le cercle (1970), Les merveilles du ciel (1975), Contrepoints (1977), Sur fond rouge (1981), Règne végétal IV (1983) and Les Oiseaux, together with three small etched greetings cards (1957, 1958 and 1961) and the illustrated book Petit Bestiaire de Johnny Friedlaender (1963). Each sheet is chosen for the quality of the impression, its edition, provenance and condition.

Silesia, Breslau and Dresden: an Expressionist apprenticeship

The son of a pharmacist, Friedlaender moved with his family from Pless to Breslau (today Wrocław) in 1921. In 1928, while still a schoolboy, he enrolled at the Breslau Academy of Art, joining the master class of Otto Mueller of Die Brücke and later studying under Carlo Mense, a painter associated with the New Objectivity. It was at Breslau that he made his first etchings and lithographs. In 1930 he settled in Dresden, showing in group exhibitions at the Galerie J. Sandel, and in 1932 he spent three months in Paris.

Arrest, exile and the war years, 1933-1945

Soon after Hitler came to power, Friedlaender was arrested and held in a concentration camp in 1933; released towards the end of the year, he was obliged to report to the police every day. In 1935 he left for Czechoslovakia, where he held his first one-man exhibition of etchings, then travelled through Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, exhibiting in The Hague. He reached Paris in 1937 as a political refugee with his young wife, renewing his residence permit week by week. André Lhote praised his work in the Nouvelle Revue française, and on Paul Chadourne’s recommendation he drew for the literary weekly Marianne. From 1939 to 1943 he was interned in a succession of camps for foreigners. The twelve etchings of Images du malheur record those years.

The Atelier de l’Ermitage: a school of colour etching

Back in Paris in 1945, Friedlaender worked for several newspapers and devoted himself increasingly to printmaking. He exhibited at Bernard Gheerbrant’s bookshop-gallery La Hune, joined the Salon de Mai in 1947 and showed there until 1969, and in 1948 exhibited at the Galerie Birch in Copenhagen. In 1949 he opened his own engraving studio, L’Ermitage. Through the 1950s and 1960s it drew young artists from across the world: the Brazilian Arthur Luiz Piza, who arrived in 1952, Brigitte Coudrain in 1954, the Belgian René Carcan, the Bolivian Graciela Rodo Boulanger and the German Andreas Nottebohm. The circle became known as the “Friedlaender school”. He was naturalised French in 1952.

International recognition and British collections

From 1951 his prints travelled widely: the Milan Triennale and Tokyo in 1951, the São Paulo Biennial and the first International Exhibition of Graphic Art in Ljubljana in 1955, and in 1958 the Venice Biennale. In 1959 he opened the printmaking studio of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. He returned to painting in 1966 and taught at the Salzburg Summer Academy. Major retrospectives followed at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (1978) and the Albertinum, Dresden (1980); in 1982 he received the Lovis Corinth Prize. In Britain, the British Museum holds thirteen of his prints, and in Ireland Trinity College Dublin owns his large Counterpoint. His work also entered Commonwealth collections early: the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne bought an aquatint in 1959. He died in Paris on 18 June 1992; the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) in Paris devoted an exhibition to him in 2008.

The prints: technique, publishers and the Schmücking catalogue

Friedlaender worked almost exclusively in intaglio. Etching gives him a fine, wiry line; aquatint, a resin ground fused to the copper, produces broad areas of tone, gradations and veils of colour close to watercolour. His colour plates often run almost to the edge of the sheet, layering ochres, reds, blues and greens. Papers are usually Arches or BFK Rives. Besides his own Éditions de l’Ermitage in Paris, German publishers played a major part, notably the Manus Presse in Stuttgart, which issued Exercices, eight plates conceived in dialogue with the composer Carl Orff, and Graphik International, also in Stuttgart. Typical editions number around 95.

The standard reference is Rolf Schmücking’s catalogue raisonné, published by the Galerie Schmücking in Braunschweig: Johnny Friedlaender. Radierungen 1930-1972 (1973), followed by volumes for 1973-1976 (1977) and 1977-1981 (1982). Prints are cited as “Schmücking” plus a number: the Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogues Gammes I (1976, edition of 95) as Schmücking 447, while Improvisation (1980) is Schmücking 647. Plates made after 1981, such as Règne végétal IV (1983), fall outside the catalogue.

Collecting Johnny Friedlaender prints: a buyer’s guide

The Schmücking number. Titles such as Oiseau, Poisson or Composition recur constantly; up to 1981 only the Schmücking reference, with the date and plate size, identifies a print with certainty.

Edition and proofs. Edition impressions are numbered in pencil. Artist’s proofs and trial proofs also circulate, sometimes in colours that differ from the published edition. See the printing.

Signature. Edition prints are signed in pencil by the artist; an unsigned sheet, unless it is a clearly identified book or portfolio plate, is worth considerably less. More on the signature.

Condition. The large aquatints cover most of the sheet, so look for light-staining, foxing and rubbing in the dark areas. Reds and blues fade: choose UV-filtering glazing for framing.

Small formats. The etched greetings cards and the plates of the Petit Bestiaire are genuine original prints and an excellent first purchase.

Pitfalls. Offset exhibition posters, often without lettering, and reproductions “after” Friedlaender are common. Our authenticity page explains our guarantees.

Friedlaender’s prints sit naturally beside those of his pupils and of fellow printmakers of the School of Paris: Arthur Luiz Piza, René Carcan, Hans Hartung, Zao Wou-Ki and Kumi Sugai. Explore the School of Paris and Lyrical Abstraction and our etchings and lithographs.

Sources and further reading

Rolf Schmücking, Johnny Friedlaender. Radierungen 1930-1972, Braunschweig, Galerie Schmücking, 1973 (with volumes for 1973-1976 and 1977-1981) · Brigitte Coudrain, Steven Jaron and Sylvie Ramond, Johnny Friedlaender 1912-1992 : le graveur dans son temps, Paris, INHA, 2008 · British Museum – Johnny Friedlaender · Trinity College Dublin Art Collections – Friedlaender · National Gallery of Victoria – Composition · Centre Pompidou – Untitled, c. 1951