Alexander Frenz (1861-1941). Printing Of Plants In Locarno, 1895 / - Crescendo Floral -

Alexander Frenz (1861 Rheydt - 1941 Düsseldorf). Plant impression in Locarno. Gouache and watercolour. 35 x 23,5 cm (visible size), 49,5 x 38,5 cm (frame), signed "a.fRENZ" at lower right, place-inscribed and dated "LOCARNO 2. MAY [18]95" at lower left. Framed.
- Surface partially rubbed



- Floral Crescendo -

The vegetation depicted seems to spray and flash like fireworks. This internal movement results from an alternation of concretion and dissolution of form. The fanned out leaf at the centre of the picture acts as a central resting place, where the eye can always recover itself to dive back into the furious action of colour. The distribution of the individual fused pictorial elements is arranged like a tapestry realted to the foreground, so that the dissolved forms merge with the surface of the painting. In this painting - and this is its fundamental idea - the forces of creation coincide with those of art.



About the artist

Frenz was first trained by the cathedral sculptor Christian Mohr and the painter Johannes Niessen. From 1879 he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art under Andreas Müller, Julius Roeting, Ernst Forberg, Eduard von Gebhard and later as a master student of Peter Janssen. He then spent a year as a private student of Franz von Lenbach in Munich. For Düsseldorf's jubilee in 1888, Frenz designed a 'living picture' with Teutons and Düsselixen. In 1891 he was awarded the Prussian State Prize, which he used to finance study trips to Naples and Rome. Further visits to Italy followed in 1893 and in 1895 Frenz travelled to Capri. After his studies, Frenz became an assistant to Hugo Crola at the Düsseldorf Academy. In 1904 he accepted a position at the Technical University of Aachen, where he succeeded Franz Reiff as head of the figure and landscape drawing and watercolour classes. In 1905 he was awarded the silver medal at the St Louis World's Fair. In 1909 Frenz gave up teaching at the university to work as a freelance artist. He lived in Berlin, Rome, Capri, Rapallo, Cologne and Bonn.
Frenz also turned to monumental painting. His commissions included the Augustinian Chapel and St Remigius' Church in Elberstadt, the Sacred Heart Church in Rheydt and the Jury Courtroom in Essen. Frenz also worked extensively as a graphic artist and book illustrator, providing illustrations for Houston Stewart Chamberlain's Richard Wagner book.
Frenz was married to the sister of the painter Arthur Kampf. However, unlike his brother-in-law Kampf, Frenz cultivated a more symbolist art and was particularly inspired by Arnold Böcklin and Franz von Stuck, earning him the nickname 'Rhenish Franz von Stuck'.
Frenz was a member of the academic artists' association Laetitia, the Freie Vereinigung Düsseldorfer Künstler, the artists' association Malkasten, the Verein Düsseldorfer Künstler zu gegenseitiger Unterstützung and the St. Lukas-Club.


"Together with Willy von Beckerath and Robert Böninger, Frenz is one of the most important Düsseldorf representatives of romantic New Idealism in connection with the symbolist-decorative aspirations of style art around 1900".

Carsten Roth



"Frenzel's talent is revealed in watercolours and drawings with a decorative content [...] more purely than in his lush, often very ephemeral oil paintings.

Walter Cohen