Franz Priking

Stunning still life of fruit by German artist Franz Priking. Painted primarily in shades of gold, deep green and black and housed in a beautiful frame that has gilded accents, this original work of art is a stunner. Signed and dated in the upper right hand corner "Pricking 1955". There is a label on the reverse side from World House Galleries on Madison Ave in NYC. The label states the artist is French (where he resided at the time this work was painted). Priking was born in Germany and was eleven years old when WWII broke out. It is said that the war influenced him and his art for the rest of his life. Immediately after the war he began to show an affinity for the Expressionist art that was banned by the Nazis. Priking was a student of Max Pechstein by 1948 at the Bauhaus, and by 1952 he had moved to southern France, meeting Picasso at Vallauris. Picasso is said to have strongly encouraged him, saying he would become one of the great artists of the century. He exhibited mostly in Europe but also in Tokyo and Sao Paolo. The artist's use of black (prominent in this work) is said to reflect the darkness of his early years during the war. His work moved through various phases, beginning with Fauvism and Cubism, moving through Expressionism and finally on to abstraction in his final decade. In 1958 he was awarded the Prix de la Jeune Peinture in Paris, in 1961 he was elected a member of the International Institute of Arts and Letters in Geneva. He died at barely age 50, cutting short a promising career. In 1990 when Ecole de Paris paintings...