Pia Fries in her studio, 2021, Düsseldorf, Germany
(Photo credit: Artemiy Sergeeviç Shokin)
Pia Fries (b. 1955, Beromünster, Switzerland) studied at the Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts, Switzerland, and at the Academy of the Arts, Düsseldorf, Germany, where she studied under Gerhard Richter. From 2014 to 2023, Fries held a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.
Over the course of her nearly-four decade career, Fries has exhibited internationally at numerous institutions and galleries. In 1999, her work was included in the 48th Venice Biennale, dAPERTutto, curated by Harald Szeemann. Notable solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Kunsthaus Baselland, Switzerland; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany; Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, and elsewhere.
Fries’ work is held in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Neues Museum Nürnberg, Germany; Sprengel Museum, Hanover, Germany; and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, among others.
She is the recipient of many awards and accolades including the Stiftung für die Graphische Kunst in der Schweiz Prize, Zürich, Switzerland; Gerhard Altenburg Award, Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg, Germany; Art and Culture Award of the City of Lucerne, Switzerland; Fred-Thieler Prize, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany; and the Nordmann Prize, Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland.
Fries lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany and Lucerne, Switzerland.
As part of Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe's collection, Pia Fries's work is on view at the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Pia Fries' work is exhibited in The Adventure of Abstraction at the Sprengel Museum Hannover.
Pia Fries is included in the exhibition Print is a Battlefield at Museo Villa dei Cedri.
Pia Fries exhibition durch sieben siebe is on view through August 2023 at Lido Malkasten, Künstlerverein Malkasten.
Pia Fries is included in the exhibition Nord — Süd at Kunst Museum Winterthur
Pia Fries: The Limits of Expressionist Abstraction
"It is important to point out that European artists were able to develop independent ways of working within the general language of expressionist abstraction, whose boundaries, at the time, were seemingly endless and open to nuances of all sorts. In Pia Fries’s case, not only was she influenced by current thinking in abstract art, in the body of work described, she links her work to an extended study of Hendrik Goltzius, the Mannerist painter whose etching of Hercules is an inspiration."
NEW YORK – MILES MCENERY GALLERY is delighted to announce its representation of Pia Fries.
Pia Fries reinterprets abstraction by sensationally combining a variety of textures and pigments to create striking and multidimensional gestural compositions. The Swiss-born painter initially studied sculpture in Lucerne, Switzerland, prior to becoming a student of Gerhard Richter at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. The artist’s background in sculpture is evident in her practice throughout her wide-ranging body of paintings. Working with a sophisticated assortment of mediums, Fries alters the way in which the materials interact on the canvas. Her unique ability to transform pictorial space is conveyed through the textured and intricately layered elements of her paintings. By layering copious amounts of oil paint on top of transferred images and geometric patterns, Fries produces an intensely visual sense of movement for the viewer to follow.
Pia Fries: Proteus und Polymorphia, featuring the work of the artist in conversation with Hendrick Goltzius etchings, is on view at the Museum Kurhaus Kleve.
Pia Fries: Weisswirt and Maserzug is on view through 5 March 2017 at the Kopfermann-Fuhrmann-Stiftung Museum.
Christopher Knight reviews Pia Fries' exhibition at Christopher Grimes Gallery for The Los Angeles Times.
Pia Fries is on view at the Berlinische Galerie through 11 May 2009.
David Frankel reviews Pia Fries' Loschaug paintings for the April 2007 issue of Artforum.
Pia Fries' exhibition at the Josef Albers Museum is reviewed by Hans Rudolf Reust in the January issue of Artforum.
