Fred Thieler valuation
German Informel painter of poured, dripped and layered fields, and an influential Berlin teacher.
Fred Thieler was born in Konigsberg in 1916 and began studying medicine there in 1937; after war service he was discharged in 1941 because his mother was Jewish, barred from continuing his studies, and later went into hiding.
What a work by Fred Thieler is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Bio
Fred Thieler was born in Konigsberg in 1916 and began studying medicine there in 1937; after war service he was discharged in 1941 because his mother was Jewish, barred from continuing his studies, and later went into hiding. He turned to painting after the war, studied in Munich, spent time in Paris among the Informel painters, and became one of the central German exponents of that manner — large canvases built from poured, dripped, sprayed and layered paint, with the physical action of the pouring left plainly legible. He taught at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin for twenty years and died in 1999.
A market principally in Germany, where he is a significant post-war figure with substantial museum representation. The large canvases of the 1950s to 1970s lead. Thieler poured and layered thinned paint on absorbent grounds, so surfaces are matt and unvarnished, staining is permanent, and any previous varnish is both visible and difficult to reverse. Works on paper in gouache and mixed media are numerous and form the accessible part of the output. Signature and date are usually on the reverse, and a foundation in his name supports the archive.
At a glance
- Born
- 17 March 1916, Königsberg
- Died
- 6 June 1999, Berlin
Munich, ZEN 49 and Hayter
In Munich during the war Thieler enrolled at Hein König's private painting school and then went underground, working with people around the White Rose and with the painter and resistance member Mac Zimmermann, and he brought his mother safely through the war. He studied painting at the Munich academy from 1946 to 1950.
He joined the group ZEN 49 in 1952, and from 1951 to 1953 lived in Paris, working with Stanley William Hayter and meeting Hartung, Soulages and Poliakoff. He was vice-president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin from 1980 to 1983, and since 1992 the Berlinische Galerie has awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for painting, which he endowed, each year on his birthday.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
