fred schimmel `twilight` silkscreen print

Fred Schimmel, a veteran printmaker and painter, was well-known for his contributions to the South African art scene.

Schimmel taught at the renowned Polly Street art centre and was the pioneering founder of the Graphics Club of South Africa. His aim was to make high-quality art accessible to middle-class and younger buyers who couldn't afford original artworks by well-known South African artists.

Born in Amsterdam in 1928, Schimmel moved to South Africa at the age of twenty. Although he had limited formal art training from the Kunstnijverheidsschool in Amsterdam, he gained extensive knowledge of print-making processes while working as an assistant in a commercial lithography company in South Africa.

Schimmel generously shared his expertise with other artists, including Sidney Khumalo, Louis Maqhubela, and Ephraim Ngatane, as a voluntary teacher at the Polly Street art centre. His own artistic output was diverse, encompassing meticulous screen-prints and expressive paintings. His paintings were characterized by a unique blend of hard-edge graphic elements and expressive impasto layers.

Judith Mason, in a catalogue for Schimmel's retrospective exhibition at the SMAC gallery in Stellenbosch in November 2008, described his life, work, and achievements as deeply satisfying. The retrospective, held to celebrate his eightieth birthday, showcased his prolific artistic journey spanning six decades. It featured a wide range of his creations, including hard-edge landscapes, figurative works, silkscreen landscapes, calligraphic abstractions, handmade paper drawings, and new experimental 'carborundum' prints.