About the Artist

To Oskar Fischinger, the potential of abstraction was infinite. As a visionary of abstract expression, Fischinger left an indelible mark in filmmaking history, and is considered one of the pioneers of non-objective animation and visual music. Born in Gelnhausen, Germany in 1900, Fischinger gravitated towards creative pursuits in music, special effects, and ultimately filmmaking and painting. His natural aptitude took him far in the filmmaking industry, bringing him and his family to Los Angeles, and earning him jobs at major studios including Paramount, M.G.M., and Disney. Fischinger also earned support from The Guggenheim Foundation and was awarded at film festivals internationally. Hilla Rebay, curator of The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, supported Oskar's work during the war years with several grants.

Once Fischinger moved to the United States in 1936 he began to apply his brilliant technical skill and proclivity for abstraction within a new medium: oil painting. The resulting body of work, spanning the next thirty years and totaling some eight hundred paintings, emerged as a prolific and strikingly diverse compendium of visual gestures. Fischinger’s explorations into the seemingly endless possibilities inherent in abstraction demonstrated his playfulness and evident pleasure in delving into one style after another. In these works, Fischinger ranged from mind-bending juxtapositions of layered lines and grids forming visual puzzles, to collections of finely detailed contours forming larger organically emotive works, followed by stark graphic compositions functioning as simplistic analyses of shape, to name a few.


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