Henry Gowa

[1] In 1931 the progressive gallery owner Ludwig Schames organised the first exclusive exhibition of Gowa, displaying his paintings as well as stage designs.

Through his contacts in the French Resistance, Gowa found refuge in a village in the mountains of Southern France, and escaped The Holocaust.

[2][4] After 1945 he returned to Germany and became the director of the Schule für Kunst und Handwerk in Saarbrücken,[1][5][6] where he established a connection with Frans Masereel.

[8] Initially a devotee of Cézanne,[5] while in exile Gowa was influenced by the protagonists of the French avant-garde, whom he came to know personally, including Bonnard, Chagall, Matisse and Picasso.

[2] After the war he increasingly sought more universal modes of expression, creating abstract compositions poised between explosive dynamics and balanced harmony.