Willy Fick

Who was Willy Fick?

Wilhelm Peter Hubert Fick, called Willy Fick, was a German graphic artist born in Cologne. He belonged to the Dada movement, and in 1919 became a founding member of the artist circle called Stupid, together with Heinrich Hoerle, Angelika Hoerle, who was the sister of Willy Fick and the wife of Heinrich Hoerle, Anton Räderscheidt, his wife Marta Hegemann, and Franz Wilhelm Seiwert.

Fick's opposition to Fascism was expressed in his paintings of the 1930s. An example is Speaker, in which a man whose gesture resembles a distorted Nazi salute is observed by empty human silhouettes and masks. On the table in front of him is a sheet of paper inscribed with the letters ABDH, a reference to the factory code of the Heinkel He 111, a bomber which began production in 1935 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Fick was condemned by the Nazis as a degenerate artist. Much of his work was destroyed during the bombing of Cologne in 1944. He died in Canada in 1967.