Fritz Winter first worked as an electrician and a miner before discovering his interest in painting after seeing works by van Gogh. He studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau visiting the classes of Klee, Kandinsky and Schlemmer from 1927 to 1930. He moved to the Ammersee in 1933 when the National Socialists declared his art 'degenerate' and banned him from exhibiting his work. Winter was forced to join the army in 1939 and was sent to the eastern front. He was captured by the Russians shortly before the end of the war and only released in 1949. During a convalescence leave in 1944 he made his 40-piece series 'Triebkräfte der Erde'. Immediately after his return Winter became a co-founder of the group 'Zen 49' and soon joined the European avant-garde movement. Elaborating his works of the 1930s, which were made under the influence of the Bauhaus, Winter developed his own pictorial language, which set him apart from the Informel. In 1955 Winter began teaching at the Landeskunstschule in Hamburg and two years later he was appointed professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Kassel. In the same year, and again in 1959, he exhibited at the documenta I and II. His works now had a lighter background. Winter began creating his 'Farbraum-Modulationen' in 1961. A large touring exhibition in different German cities honoured the artist on his 60th birthday in 1965. He retired from his chair in Kassel in 1970 and returned to Diessen on the Ammersee. A Fritz-Winter-House was opened in Ahlen in 1975. Even before his death Winter was considered one of the most famous German post-war artists.

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