Oskar Fischinger
#310

1960
Oil on canvas board
Signed lower right; dated with artist's monogram lower left
Board: 11.5" x 6.75"; Frame: 14.5" x 9.75"

Provenance: Gerald Nordland, Chicago, Illinois

More Information:

A pioneer of modernism in Los Angeles, Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967) is celebrated for his transcendent and metaphysical oil paintings, as well as for his groundbreaking work in abstract film animation. Through each medium, Fischinger explored the boundaries of human perception, offering his audiences a glimpse of the infinite.

Fischinger was a champion of pure abstraction. His work in avant-garde cinema in his native Germany had won international attention by the early 1930s. Using techniques as basic as stop-motion filming and materials as simple as paper cut-outs hung by invisible wire, Fischinger produced astonishing visual effects by which brightly-colored, geometric shapes and spirals swooped, spun, and danced across the screen, shot forward, receded, and vanished.

At the height of the Nazi regime in Germany, Fischinger accepted a deal with Paramount and left for Hollywood in 1936. There he worked in succession for Paramount, MGM, and Disney, but grew frustrated at every stop as it became more and more apparent that the studios saw film only as a medium for storytelling. In response, Fischinger turned to painting as a creative outlet—one he pursued with vigor for the rest of his life. His artwork is often compared to that of Kandinsky and Klee, though Fischinger's paintings uniquely embody a sense of cinematic movement. His forms resonate and pulse, move in waves, swell, and burst; or else they drift quietly in cosmic space. For Fischinger, these abstractions were means to transcendent ends. He sought, through painting, to escape the earthly, and to hint at the eternal.

Moritz, William. Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oscar Fischinger. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. Print. Karlstrom, Paul J., and Susan Ehrlich. Turning the Tide: Early Los Angeles Modernists, 1920-1956. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1990. Print.