Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze)
Germany (1913—1951)Born into a wealthy and culturally cultivated family, Wols grew up in Dresden, where he developed an early interest in photography. After studying briefly at the Bauhaus in Dessau, he moved to Paris in 1932 on the recommendation of László Moholy-Nagy and began working as a photographer, establishing contacts with artists including Fernand Léger and Max Ernst. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, he was interned as a German citizen in southern France and, after his release, fled to Cassis, where he continued to draw and paint, producing watercolours that reflected his experiences and surroundings. After returning to Paris in 1945, he increasingly turned to painting and developed the gestural, spontaneous style that would make him one of the pioneers of Tachisme and Art Informel. His work was also shaped by his encounters with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and by the existentialist climate of post-war Paris. Wols died in Paris in 1951, aged only thirty-eight, after years of poor health compounded by alcoholism.
