Alfred Freddy Krupa – born, 1971 – a dramatic, interesting and unpredictable artist.
Three on the riverbank
His first art lesson was with his grandfather, Alfred Krupa (Alfred Joseph Krupa, 1915– 1989), a Silesian Pole and a graduate of Krakow Academy of Fine Arts.
Alfred Krupa Sr. was a Polish defender in World War II and found himself in the first line of defense, as Germany’s armies and air force launched an attack on Poland in the early hours of September 1st, 1939. After the defeat of the Polish army, Alfred ended up in a long list of military and working camps.
Alfred had one sister and two brothers. In 1942, his sister was arrested in Gleiwitz and imprisoned for two years. At 8:20am on February 1st, 1944, she was burned alive in the KL Auschwitz-Birkenau crematorium. His younger brother disappeared somewhere in Eastern Europe, and his older brother was captured and imprisoned by the Soviets. Circumstances led Alfred to occupied Yugoslavia in 1943, where he joined Tito’s partisans. With no family, and immediately overwhelmed by the natural beauty that surrounded him, he decided to spend his life in this foreign land. Ultimately, he would capture the breathtaking scenes in the thousands of aquarelles that would eventually earn him popularity and fame.
Hildegard Marie Ossek-Kruppa K.L.Auschwitz 1.2.1944 at 8:20 AM
At the beginning of his own career, Freddy (as the younger Alfred chose to be called, so as not to be confused with his mentor) painted aquarelles, following in his grandfather’s footsteps. In his hometown of Karlovac (known as the town of four rivers) he captured many melodious symphonies of landscape from the shores of those rivers. Then, the finger of fate stepped in.
Karlovac’s grey (gray)
Fate seemed to have chosen Freddy in two separate circumstances. Both had a profound impact, and he found himself heading in a completely different artistic direction as a result.
The first circumstance was the decision to pursue a formal education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. After graduating, Freddy took his talent to Japan where, in 1998-1999, he became the first Croatian painter/artist to receive the Monbusho Scholarship (now known as the Monbukagakusho Scholarship) from the Japanese government. It was there that he discovered Hakubyou (白描), monochrome painting with ink and brush on mulberry/rice paper, similar to Japanese monumental calligraphy. That discovery, albeit with regressive delay, was crucial in developing his authentic style, a synthesis of the Far East and traditional West. Freddy had already begun attracting attention from art critics and, with his newly developed style, continued to garner attention while in Japan. His sketches, lightness of drawing and deepening of expression beneath the first impression were unique, while at the same time, he was following the rules of classic painting – order, transparency and legible silhouette. Freddy went on to become the only non-Asian individual to place among the top 10 Modern Ink painters (London/Berlin-based Artfacts).
The second circumstance to shape Freddy’s career was the dramatic conditions he discovered upon returning home from Japan. He witnessed, first hand, a corrupted Croatian establishment that showed no respect towards his family (his grandfather – teacher, inventor, boxer and painter; his father, Mladen Krupa – civil engineer, defender and inventor; himself, a teacher and defender) and repeatedly obligated the city of Karlovac and the Republic of Croatia. Freddy’s artistic expression changed at its very core. His motives remained the same, but meditativeness and poetic impression were now significantly less prevalent in his river landscape aquarelles and other works. There was raw expression, his painting undiluted with the use of dense black ink, applied with dynamic, tense, almost nervous moves of the brush on soft rice paper. This was all done in the tradition of Japanese Hakubyou and earlier Chinese ink painting based in the Warring States period (戰國時代). The chaos of this period, and the atmosphere of anxious expectation, was now a reminder of the loathsome social situation of Croatia.
Freddy’s chromatic and formal artistic reduction followed the approach of the East, where the entire drawing is often reduced to a single continuous movement. The painted line represents the flow of the artist’s thoughts and emotions in the moment. Freddy began to interpolate this with the expressionism and Art Informel of the West, and once again created a uniqueness in artistic style, gaining international acceptance and recognition from the United States to China.
That distinctive artistic synthesis, however, was not a product of Freddy’s search for affirmation or success, or recognizable penmanship (the Holy Grail of the majority of today’s painters and artists). Rather, it was, as Freddy himself admits, a road to self-healing.
Freddy thought often of his country. Too many Croatians were suffering from chronic disease, and suicide of underage children was on the rise. A staggering 52% of high school students admitted they did not see a future for themselves in Croatia, and after entering the EU in 2013, 10% of the total population ultimately left, citing injustice as the reason. Croatia was struggling with a justice system that ranked 120th out of 140 rated countries in the world.
The first snow
Freddy was once asked how he would define success. This was his passionate response, taken from one of his Facebook posts:
“I think success is when you are confronted with utter defeat of your world, your intimacy, your ideas, your public picture, your heritage, your previous achievements. When in one moment it looks like there is one, and nothing that helps you. When almost every look is also a look of doubt, when you yourself put everything under the question mark. When all the illusions about yourself fall, illusions about your surroundings, about people, about faith and religion, about flags, about objects of love and how much are you in love…and then, in that moment of personal and private holocaust, of that ocean of pain looking like all inner strength faded away, and there is no right for excuses about your existence. When at that moment you rise and keep moving forward, you start and you lead a creative and productive life. Yes, I think that is objective strength and power.”
Photo Credits
All photos are © Alfred Freddy Krupa – All Rights Reserved
Guest Author Bio
Ante Vranković
Ante Vranković graduated archaeology and art history and works as independent art critic since 1995. He has published more than three hundred articles in professional journals, cultural and art magazines, newspapers, as well as on the radio, TV, and Internet. He is a member of the Croatian Freelance Artist’s Association since 2002.
Translation from the Croatian original by Gabriel Alfred Krupa.
I have known Freddy Kruppa for years, he his a dear friend of mine. I know is art. You can see his father’s influence and his mentoring. .Freddy however is his own man. His art is honest. He is a teacher. shares his talent to his students.
Thank you David!
A very interesting and insightful article. Look forward to reading more from the author Ante Vrankovic.
Thank You a lot!