Article

Fritz Brandtner

Published Online May 21, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Fritz Brandtner, painter (b at Danzig [Gdansk, Poland], Germany 28 July 1896; d at Montréal 7 Nov 1969). Generally considered to have introduced German expressionism to Canada, Brandtner was trained in Berlin and came to Winnipeg in 1928. He worked as a house painter until L.L.

Fritz Brandtner

Fritz Brandtner, painter (b at Danzig [Gdansk, Poland], Germany 28 July 1896; d at Montréal 7 Nov 1969). Generally considered to have introduced German expressionism to Canada, Brandtner was trained in Berlin and came to Winnipeg in 1928. He worked as a house painter until L.L. FITZGERALD, principal of the Winnipeg School of Art, encouraged him to exhibit his own experimental paintings.

In 1934 he moved to Montréal, where he found greater scope for his "modern" approach. He was associated there with John LYMAN and the CONTEMPORARY ARTS SOCIETY and later with the Canadian Group of Painters and with Marian SCOTT, with whom he taught children's art classes.

A strong sense of design, exuberant colours and characteristic, slashing black diagonals marked his work in oil, watercolour graphics and linoleum, the latter used for panels for the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and Jasper Park Lodge. Murals by Brandtner are in Saskatoon and Boston.