Fritz Huf

The Swiss artist Fritz Huf was an autodidact and worked as a sculptor, painter and graphic artist. After his initial success in Frankfurt am Main he moved to Berlin where he lived from 1914–24. It was here that numerous busts of well-known figures in Berlin were made. His most famous works are portraits of Rainer Maria Rilke, Max Liebermann, Walter Rathenau and Eleonore Duse. He shared a studio in Berlin with Hermann Haller and Ernesto de Fiori from 1921 until 1923. Between the wars Fritz Huf involved himself with Egyptian sculpture. During this Exoticism phase he made several portraits of Asians. His busts always depict real people.
In 1924 Huf moved to Paris where he made his first, small, non-figurative sculptures from 1930 onwards – strongly influenced by the work of Constantin Brancusi. He became a member of the Abstraction Création group of artists in 1934 in Paris and met Pablo Picasso. While in France he turned more and more to painting and graphic work that became inceasingly abstract. In 1940 he returned to Lucerne and divided his time alternately between Switzerland and Italy up until his death.

Little is known of his relationship to Alfred Flechtheim. It was only in 1929 that Flechtheim first exhibited works by Fritz Huf. He had however sold works by the artist to German museums before this time.