Works by Gerhard, Richter, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and members of the Zero Group are some of the highlights currently on view at Ketterer Kunst’s new Berlin exhibition. The auction house is presenting works from the Kurt Fried Collection, usually located in the Southern German town of Ulm.

Kurt Fried, who passed away in 1981, was a newspaper publisher and author with an exceptional instinct for emerging art talents and a strong sense of social responsibility. His passion for his collection was legendary in Southern Germany, as was his engagement for the arts and experimental theater. In the late 1950s he began presenting public exhibitions in his private home, later he opened his own gallery studio f, which also organized spectacular happenings and supported many then emerging art stars who have since reached blue-chip status.

Next to artists from the local art academy Hochschule für Gestaltung such as Max Bill or Almir Mavignier, Fried hat particularly close ties with the Zero group. Exhibitions by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack were among the first to be shown in the new gallery, which soon established a reputation for itself as an avant-gardistic island in this otherwise provincial part of the country, courtesy also to its experimental approach to presentation. At Piene’s exhibition “New York New York,” for example, the audience was invited to move through a room full of oversized tube-like constructions and explore the art interactively (Fried also frequently collaborated with the local theater for interdisciplinary actions and happenings). As a consequence, artists like Mack at the time would rather visit rural Ulm than the much larger Southern German cultural center Munich and would frequently drop by at the Studio f. when on route to Italy.

The Berlin show reflects these personal connections with works like a vibrant smoke painting by Otto Piene from 1961 or a trademark nail-on-canvas work by Günther Uecker from 1962; complemented by a “Concetto Spaziale Attese” from 1960 by Lucio Fontana, and a sewn canvas by Piero Manzoni from 1958 to name just a few examples.

Another strong focus is put on Fried’s affinity for American art, from Abstract Expressionist works by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Cy Twombly to Pop Art such as Roy Lichtenstein’s “Yellow Sky”, 1966, an Andy Warhol silkscreen of Jacky Kennedy from 1964, a “Six” painting by Robert Indiana from 1965, and Hard Edge paintings byEllsworth Kelly or Frank Stella.

In 1978, Kurt Fried donated his entire collection of 400 artworks to the Ulm Museum. His studio f was closed down four years after his death, in 1985. Outside of Southern Germany his engagement has remained largely unknown to date, as art historian Thekla Zell has noted in her publication on the history of the gallery. Nonetheless, Fried’s collection – and the selection on view in Berlin – speak of his extraordinary instincts for top quality art.

The exhibition will be on view through September 27, 2016 and shown concurrently with the Berlin Art Week this fall.

“Stiftung Sammlung Kurt Fried,” through September 27, 2016, Ketterer Kunst, Fasanenstr. 70, 10719 Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany.Click here for more information.