(Linz 1910–2001)
“Vorfrühling” (Early spring), signed and dated Fritz Fröhlich, 1937, on the reverse adhesive label in handwriting Fritz Fröhlich “Vorfrühling”, oil on plywood, nailed to wooden moulding at the edges, 81 x 101 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private Collection, Linz - since the end of the 1930s

1937 State Prize - First public recognition in Linz

The year 1937 brought a decisive turning point for Fritz Fröhlich. He had just joined the Upper Austrian Art Association on the advice of Hermann Ubell, the then director of the Upper Austrian State Museum, and that very year the major exhibition „Austrian Contemporary Art” in Linz’s Südbahnhalle gave him the opportunity to exhibit ten of his own works in two booths. Not only did he sell four works straight away, but at the age of just 27 he was also awarded one of two state prizes offered by the Ministry of Education. This first professional artistic recognition was accompanied by developments in Fröhlich’s private life, as he met his future wife (the teacher Beatrix Weißgärber) that same year. Many of the young Fritz Fröhlich’s artistic works perished in a fire a year later, when the little house built in 1937 in Dürnberg near Ottensheim was destroyed by a chimney fire.

The exhibition venue was a huge, badly dilapidated exhibition hall known as the Südbahnhalle, which was also used to exhibit prize cattle. Despite this uninviting atmosphere, all of Austria’s renowned artists’ organisations registered to take part in the exhibition. I was allowed to hang my pictures in two booths. The exhibition was generally regarded as sensationally successful. The Ministry of Education had offered two state prizes; the second was awarded to me, a 27-year-old newcomer.
Hannes Etzlstorfer, in: Fritz Fröhlich. Werkverzeichnis I, Citygalerie Linz (Hrsg.), Linz 2000, p. 6