Schuler · Lot 3227
Pike
Gouache
Original catalogue wording
Hecht
gouache
Catalogue period : 2020-09-18
Published result : 550 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 500–800
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Fritz Winkler
Born : 1894Died : 1964Documented citizenships : Germany
Fritz Winkler, a German painter born and deceased in Dresden, worked in painting and watercolour, as well as illustration, in a career marked by the loss of a large part of his early works. Landscapes, people at work and animals occupy a significant place in his oeuvre; a critical comment describes his landscapes as treated in a dynamic and expressive manner. In a cited statement, he asserts that the quality of a work does not depend on whether it is realistic or abstract, and associates truth and simplicity with artistic beauty.
He trained in Dresden: he attended the School of Applied Arts from 1909 to 1912, then the Academy of Fine Arts under Emanuel Hegenbarth, first from 1912 to 1915 and later as a master pupil from 1918 to 1921. Conscripted in 1915 during the First World War, he was seriously wounded and lost his left eye. Around 1920, he belonged to the Dresden artists’ group Die Schaffenden and also joined the circle of the Sieben Spaziergänger. From 1921, he worked as a freelance illustrator for the Volkszeitung für Plauen und das Vogtland, edited by Erich Knauf; this collaboration continued until 1928. From that same year, he worked regularly for the Büchergilde Gutenberg and its monthly magazine. Among his book projects, in 1927 he contributed, with Erich Fraaß, Georg Nerlich and Erich Ohser, to the illustrations for Max Barthel’s Erde unter den Füßen, published in 1929. That same year, he designed and illustrated the German edition of Abenteuer im Eismeer by the Swedish author Albert Viksten.
Under the Nazi regime, Winkler was a member of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste and appeared in at least twenty-four exhibitions up to 1943. In 1937, twenty-three of his works were seized from several German institutions as part of the «Entartete Kunst» campaign; some were destroyed. Drafted in 1943 during the Second World War, he returned to Dresden in 1946 after his captivity in England. The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 resulted in the loss of almost all his earlier work. During the last eighteen years of his life, he produced more than three hundred paintings and five thousand watercolours.
Watercolours are at the centre of several recorded solo exhibitions: at Galerie Hennig in Halle in 1947, at the Kaisertrutz in Görlitz in 1963 and at the Haus der Heimat in Freital in 1964. In his will, Winkler bequeathed to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden the works created during the last eighteen years of his life. In 2017, the Villa Eschebach in Dresden presented «Fritz Winkler – ein sächsischer Expressionist», an exhibition assembled from the holdings of the municipal collections of Freital.
This profile brings together identity references for Fritz Winkler and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
2 references are documented at Schuler. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.
Works recorded at auction
Schuler · Lot 3228
Bay
Watercolour on paper
Original catalogue wording
Bucht
Aquarell auf Papier
Catalogue period : 2020-09-18
Published result : 1000 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 500–800
View the lot at the auction house ↗Sources and references
SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Documentation updated : 2026-10-19