August Wilhelm Dressler

Female nude with hand mirror - Drawing, Pencil, Female Nude, New Objectivity

ca. 1930

Wilhelm August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity (...) and was committed to social and political issues. The Berliner-of-choice defied stubbornly the summary classification. Dressler acted truthfully to his origin, temperament and insight as an individual who presents his bond as obligation, who takes his program as template and his slogan as abomination. Only few painters of his generation restrain so inconspicuously from the revolutionary storm and new trends that found its most effective expression in Expressionism of ” the Bridge” group and in the mystical works of the ‘Blue Rider’. Dressler’s self-imposed isolation is based neither on his capriciousness nor is it intentional – it is simply one of the inner necessities of his artistic existence. One does not do justice to his work, if one tries to interpret only the visible facts, the artistic or the technical qualities in Dressler’s works. This painter lived his destiny with a stubbornly determined consequence of his fate: the pictures are nothing else than the graphic metaphors of the ‘introverted gaze’. He experienced grief and loneliness already during his youth. Dressler learns early about the shadow side of human existence – it becomes the basis of the way he perceived the world. ” I cannot separate myself from what has established me ” – there was a very immediate connection and solidarity between the painter and his personal experiences (l’art pour l’art attitude). Thus Dressler identifies himself with those embodiments of petty-bourgeois narrowness, with those disappointed and abandoned, with those who appreciate simple joys of life and those with quiet hopes. In his works the figurative language wins through its ability to depict and objectify feelings without words. Dressler does not paint to be modern or original. His way of perception is essential in a solid sense; he focuses on things, elements, and events that reflect a piece of life. The closeness to the object and the attachment to the figure remain unchanged in Dressler’s oeuvre. One is tempted, looking at his works of five decades, to speak rather than about development but more of unfolding. The thematic inventory is from the beginning artist’s credo and basic motive: the form is added as the answer of the painter. It is Dressler’s personal preference not to correct reality nor to imitate it – his realism brings form and content, sensation and insight to life in a forceless manner. Dressler feels, thinks and arguments his works on a more general level; his work is not an illustration of social misery or individual depravity. This “realist of the sharper tone” painterly transcends the limitations of genre and folklore; his “petty-bourgeois everyday life” is neither enclosed in the poor man’s pathos nor in the oh-human ecstasy. “Who controls the keyboard of nature”, proclaims Dressler, “can play in their own ways”. Source: Delp’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung München, August Willhelm Dressler, Munich 1970.