Otto Freundlich German painter and sculptor Date of Birth: 10.07.1878 Country: Germany

Biography of Otto Freundlich

Otto Freundlich, a German painter and sculptor, was born on July 10, 1878, in the city of Slupsk in Prussia, in a Jewish family. In 1908, he moved to Paris, where he lived in Montmartre, near Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, studying art and absorbing the spirit of creativity. In 1914, the artist returned to Germany. During this time, Dadaism emerged in art as a reaction to the consequences of World War I, the brutality of which, according to the Dadaists, emphasized the meaninglessness of existence. Rationalism and logic were declared by the Dadaists as the main culprits behind devastating wars and conflicts. Based on this, they believed that contemporary European culture needed to be destroyed through the decomposition of art. The main idea of Dadaism was the systematic destruction of any aesthetics. In 1919, Otto Freundlich, Max Ernst, and Johannes Theodor Baargeld organized the first Dadaist exhibition in Cologne. From 1925 onwards, Freundlich lived and worked primarily in France, joining the group "Abstraction-Création" in 1931.

In Germany, his works were deemed "degenerate" and banned. Several of the artist's works were seized by the Nazis and displayed at the "degenerate art" exhibition. When World War II began, Otto Freundlich was detained by the French authorities but was soon released thanks to the intervention of Pablo Picasso. However, in 1943, he was arrested by the German occupation authorities and sent to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he was killed on the day of his arrival, March 9, 1943.