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Florian Froehlich (born December 17, 1959, in Pfaeffikon in Switzerland), is a contemporary artist who creates paintings, sculptures, stained-glass, and installations.
Florian Froehlich was, when starting out in art, strongly influenced[1] by the School of Paris, in particular by artists such as Maurice Estève, Charles Lapicque and Nicolas de Staël. He had had contacts with the world of art on a regular basis from childhood on, as he is related to the famous Zurich art dealer Peter Nathan.[2] He trained in medicine at the Universities of Zurich and Lausanne until 1996 and thereafter developed a progressive and lasting activity as an artist in tandem with his professional life. He is living since 1996 in Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura. His close friendship and collaboration[3] with the Swiss artist Jacques Minala[4] lead him to become familiar with the technique of stained glass. Since 2003, he is member of the Swiss Stained Glass Artists Society Verarte.ch[5] which led to several group exhibitions in the Vitromusée Suisse de Romont,[6] in particular in 2009.[7]
From 2003 to 2009, Froehlich worked intensely on the "Saignelégier Steles" for the catholic church in Saignelégier, Jura Switzerland, project which received national funding from the Swiss Confederation,[8] and which was executed in collaboration with the glass master-craftsman Roland Béguin[9]), and the metalwork artist J.-P. Scheuner using experimental techniques. The novel concept of the stele allows keeping all the church's luminosity by occupying only a very limited space. In contrast to normal stained glass which is not lit, Froehlich is using in Saignelégier artificial light: indeed, three steles, called the Golgotha group, are strongly backlit. Every of the 21 four-meter high steles is associated with a text from the bible commented by Father Bernard Miserez.[10] The dalle glass was produced specifically for this project, in Waldsassen (Germany). The Saignelégier Steles are a novel contribution to contemporary sacred glasswork.[11] [12]
Occasionally, Froehlich creates in relation to world events, such as for the Jura leg of the Tour de France 2012: he showed an art installation exhibited to thousands of spectators over a 24-hour period on July 8, 2012. In 2012 and 2013, his work was presented at the Berliner Liste,[13] a reputed and selective international art fair.[14]
Since 2010, Froehlich has worked very regularly with the ACHTZIG Gallery for Contemporary Fine Art in Berlin.[15] The ACHTZIG Gallery staged a solo exhibition of Froehlich's work in December 2013, entitled "World Theatre-Theatre World". At his occasion a book with his same title has been published by Editions Le Renard par la Queue,[16] Lausanne, directed by the author Ferenc Rákóczy in a contemporary design by Chloé Donzé and contributions by the journalist José Ribeaud.Currently, Froehlich's work is focusing on the human being and the interaction between individual and crowds.[17] Froehlich creates a kind of virtual human microcosmos notably by micro-sculptures integrated in painting-sculptures and sculpture-paintings.In fall 2013, Froehlich had the novel idea to suggest the scenic integration of microsculptures in watches. This idea was officially presented to Swiss watchmakers,[18] with the support of Pascal Bourquard and BIWI.
From 2015 on, Froehlich has gradually begun to change his focus from crowds to the human being in all their various individualities, with the Renaissance as his gateway to the subject, having concentrated mainly on sketching over a period of two years. The artist has, for example, used a pre-existing drawing or art work which he has magnified, while often focussing on amplifying a specific detail.[19] This has given his compositions an amplitude and a liberty which bring them into line with the spirit of our times, using a multitude of techniques: pencil, charcoal, water colour, collage, acrylics and even encaustic painting, a very ancient technique using beeswax. The spirit of the Renaissance pervades his work: the intellectual excursion into humanism, a perfect mastery of the use of perspective and the magic that is beauty. Froehlich rejuvenates this era with an artistic vision which is both new and contemporary.One of the focuses of Froehlich's work is the Biblical character, Haman, taking as his base a small sketch by Bartolomeo Passarotti whose subject was used in the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Peter-Paul Rubens took up the subject of this sketch during the following century, reworking it in his manner. What liberty this inter-inspiration between artists permits! Pierre Hügli, an art magazine publisher wrote: “Who of the contemporary artists will show a passion for the sketches of the old masters, these riches hidden away in the archives, to the point of making them the starting point of a one-of-a-kind artistic creation?»[20]
The culmination of Froehlich's work can be seen in this autumn 2018's exhibition « Renaissance Magic » at the BLOCH Foundation (FARB) in Delémont. Two concerts will take place in tandem with the exhibition, featuring among others the works of the Romantic composer, Friedrich Théodor Froehlich (1803–1836), friend of Franz Schubert and an ancestor of the artist.
Froehlich's reference to old master drawings is original and coherent. His paintings are inducing both contemplation and happiness. In fall 2020, the Centre Saint-François in Delémont (Jura) displays BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (entre Ciel et terre). The show has a symbolic duration of 365 days. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to energize the artist's creativity . Particular attention deserves his painting the COVID Christ (2020). This work is emblematic for Froehlich's way to create both a provocative and spiritual message, an artistic message of hope.Since 2021, the park of the 19th century residence, Villa Dubail-Burrus[21] that Florian Froehlich lives with his wife Isabelle and his family has been restored. The building inspired by French Baroque and its vast park regularly provide him with inspiration for his painting. Villa Dubail-Burrus becomes a member of Domus Antiqua Helvetica,[22] the Swiss association of owners of historic residences
In 2022, Froehlich installed a very powerful stained glass installation at the Porrentruy cemetery - for his father-in-law Claude Duthé who died in 2019 - which he calls "fluxus vitae": Defying the tradition of a cemetery, he celebrates with this creation death by life.[23] Like the Saignelégier steles, he carried out this work in close collaboration with the Béguin stained glass workshop in St Croix and the locksmiths J.Pierre and Marianne Scheuner. A metallic spiral in ultramarine blue springs from the pink marble of Portugal, twists in space, tenderly embraces a face made of colored glass slab and then gets lost further, in infinity. Semi-transparent Iranian pink onyx is used for the funerary plaque. Fluxus vitae will become the family tomb.
