Fritz Bultman (April 4, 1919 – July 20, 1985) was an American

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

painter, sculptor, and collagist and a member of the New York School of artists.

Biography

A. Fred Bultman was the second child and only son of A. Fred and Pauline Bultman. His family was prominent in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

, where his father owned a Catholic funeral company. By the age of thirteen he was interested in art, and worked with Morris Graves, who was a family friend. As a high school junior in 1935 Fritz went to study in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

for two years,PAR
/ref> and there boarded with Maria Hofmann, the wife of artist and teacher Hans Hofmann. After returning to the United States he studied with Hofmann in New York City and Provincetown,

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Despite his father's wishes that he become an architect, with Hofmann's encouragement he decided instead to continue his study of art. In 1944 he bought a house in Provincetown, and thenceforth Bultman and his wife Jeanne divided their time between

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer months. The ...

and New York City. His early paintings have been described as "rough and painterly", an amalgam of symbolism and geometry. Bultman was exhibiting with other abstract expressionists by the late 1940s, and in 1950 was aligned with the group of New York School artists, nicknamed the " Irascibles" in an article in

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

magazine,Provincetown Banner
/ref> who signed a letter to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

protesting the institution's conservative policies. With the assistance of a grant from Italy he studied bronze casting in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in 1951; subsequently he was the sole abstract expressionist to fully integrate sculpture into his oeuvre. Affected by anxiety and depression, Bultman worked little between 1952 and 1956, and resumed painting and sculpting after undergoing

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...

analysis. At a time when African Americans were prohibited from visiting white museums in the south, in 1963 Bultman and his wife led a group of prominent New York artists and writers in the creation of a collection of modern art for

Tougaloo College Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It was established in 1869 by ...

, a black institution in

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. Bultman was awarded a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

in 196465 to work in Paris. In the 1960s Bultman began to make large collages, using pre-painted paper cut or torn and assembled into shapes reminiscent of his figurative drawings and more abstract sexual symbolism. In 1976 he started making stained glass windows with the aid of his wife. Bultman died of cancer in 1985.

Assessment

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

, Bultman was "one of the most splendid, radiant and inspired painters of my generation.", and David Houston, curator of the

Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is a museum dedicated to art by artists from the southern United States in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was established in 1999. The building The Ogden museum is located in the Warehouse Arts District of downtown ...

in New Orleans called him "an important artist from the South who was part of that great moment that changed the American cultural landscape." It has been suggested that Bultman's career and subsequent reputation suffered from the vagaries of chance: he was not available for inclusion in the now iconic photo shoot for Life magazine that helped establish the reputations of the New York School painters; another possibility, according to Motherwell, was Bultman's lack of interest in "art world politics".Naves, Mario
/ref>

Notes

References

''About My Drawings'' by Fritz Bultman

Cousineau, Diane; Salvesen, Magda. Artist's Estates: Reputations in Trust. Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Naves, Mario. ''Rambunctious Bultman, He Missed the Photo Op'', The New York Observer

Jeanne Bultman obituary, Provincetown Banner

External links

* ttp://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A28578&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1 Museum of Modern Art
Smithsonian American Art Museum

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bultman, Fritz 1919 births 1985 deaths Abstract expressionist artists 20th-century American painters American male painters Artists from New Orleans Painters from New York City 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Sculptors from New York (state)