Fritz Wotruba Lithograph, signed/N from the edition of only XV, 1969 in original sleeve. Rare Flight Portfolio-Deluxe Edition

This rare 3 color lithograph (one of only XV Hors Commerce trial proofs) was created by renowned artist Fritz Wotruba. This work was created in 1969 and was chosen to be included in the Deluxe Edition of the historic 'Flight Portfolio', assembled in 1971 to raise funds for Holocaust victims. The 12 artists who participated were: Eugene Berman, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Viera da Silva, Adolph Gottileb, Wifredo Lam, Jacques Lipchitz, André Masson, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Edouard Pignon, and Fritz Wotruba.


Fritz Wotruba (April 23, 1907 in Vienna – August 28, 1975 in Vienna) was an Austrian sculptor of Czecho-Hungarian descent. He was considered one of the most notable sculptors of the 20th century in Austria. In his work, he increasingly dissolves figurative components in favor of geometrical abstraction with the shape of the cube as the basic form.

It was printed in 1969  by Wolfensberger in Zurich.  The portfolio was completed in 1971 by the International Rescue Committee in Washington, D.C. This is the first time the print has been removed from it's original oversized blue portfolio case with the word "FLIGHT", which also featured the colophon pages and literary text. It is numbered VII from the rare Deluxe Edition of only XV HC in Roman numerals.

Unlike the regular edition, printed on Rives, this Deluxe edition lithograph is on Crisbrook Waterleaf handmade special paper. It is rarely to market.

The Flight series was originally organized by American WWII hero Varian Fry, an International Rescue Committee representative in France during WWII, who rescued over 1,500 writers, artists, intellectuals, and over 2,000 other refugees. Among those Fry helped rescue were Hannah Arendt, Andre Breton, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Wand Landowska, Jacques Lipchitz, and Heinrich Mann. The International Rescue Committee was established in 1933 at the behest of Albert Einstein to aid European refugees escaping the Nazis.

"In so far as he (Aeneas) is heroic, he is heroic as the original Displaced Person, the fugitive from a ruined city and an obliterated society, of which the few other survivors except his own band languish as slaves of the Greeks." - T.S. Eliot (from the colophon page of the "Flight Portfolio").

It was Jacques Lipchitz (the artist rescued by Varian Fry) who suggested the T.S. Eliot reference to Aeneas, as a pertinent theme for the portfolio celebrating the anniversary of the rescue operation.

Writes William S. Lieberman, Director of Painting & Sculpture & Riva Castleman, Associate Curator of Prints & Illustrated Books at the Museum of Modern art for the Flight Portfolio Colophon page: "In a void there is despair. The introduction of one light, one form, may encourage hope. .. The three American artists represented in this portfolio take this theme as their contribution.....the darkening proceeding to bright forms will inevitably be interpreted by those who know the story of this portfolio as the aspiration of man, after such a struggle for peace."

A rare lithograph from the Deluxe edition of only XV is sold in its original portfolio sleeve, as additional provenance.
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