The Vision behind The 37th Sketch
“Art is nothing more than the expression of our dreams.”
– Franz Marc, Letters from the Field to his wife Maria (1914–1916)
The Fascination
Franz Marc has always fascinated me – Gerhard Frischholz, Munich-based engineer and creator of The 37th Sketch. Not just his famous animal paintings – the Blue Horse, the Foxes, the Tiger – but especially the works from his final years. In these paintings, I sensed an evolution, a movement toward something new. More abstract forms, more intense colors, an almost cosmic dimension. Where would this path have led him?
A Shared City
Munich was Franz Marc’s birthplace. It became mine by choice. I arrived as a student over 40 years ago and made this city my home – the same city where Marc studied at the Academy, where he and Kandinsky founded the Blue Rider, and where his legacy lives on in the Lenbachhaus. Walking through Munich, I often wondered: Did he walk these same streets? Did he see these same mountains on the horizon? This city connects us across more than a century.
The Moment That Changed Everything
In 2005, the Lenbachhaus presented a major retrospective marking the 125th anniversary of Franz Marc’s birth. I stood in those rooms, surrounded by his masterpieces, when I discovered something in a glass display case that would never leave my mind: the Sketchbook from the Field.
36 small drawings, created in the trenches near Verdun. Studies for paintings Marc intended to create after the war. Horses, landscapes, abstract compositions – hastily sketched between the horrors of war, full of hope for a time that would come after.
That time never came. On March 4, 1916, Franz Marc was killed at Verdun. He was only 36 years old.
A Question That Remained
I left the museum that day with a feeling of profound sadness. Not just for the loss of a man, but for the loss of what could have been. These sketches were promises – promises of paintings that were never made. How magnificent would these paintings have been?
This question stayed with me over the years. Every time I saw a Franz Marc painting somewhere, I thought of those small drawings in the glass case. Of the paintings that never were.
A Possibility Emerges
As an electrical engineer, artificial intelligence has been part of my professional life for decades. I understood its capabilities – and its limitations. But AI had always been about data, systems, optimization. It was only in 2024 that I became aware of the remarkable progress in image generation. Suddenly, AI could do something I had never expected: understand and interpret artistic styles.
One thought wouldn’t leave me alone: Could I see Marc’s sketches in color?
I knew that if I wanted to attempt this, I had to do it right. My technical background helped me understand how to work with the technology, but that alone wasn’t enough. I studied Marc’s late work intensively, read his letters to his wife Maria from the front, researched his artistic plans and his thoughts about the future of his painting. I wanted to understand how Franz Marc would have painted if he had survived the war.
What Came of It
After months of work, images emerged that moved me deeply. For the first time, I saw these sketches in color – in the colors Marc might have chosen. Of course, uncertainty remains: Would he really have painted this way? No one can know. But perhaps that is precisely what makes it compelling.
These images are not forgeries and not copies. They are an interpretation, a respectful approach to what could have been. They are my answer to the question that has accompanied me since 2005.
The 37th Sketch – because the 37th image is the first one to exist in color.
– Gerhard Frischholz, Founder of “The 37th Sketch”
Selected Literature & Research
KLAUS LANKHEIT
Franz Marc: his Life and his Art (1976)
ERICH FRANZ
Franz Marc: Forces of Nature – Works 1912-1915 (1994)
FRANZ MARC
Letters from the War (1914–1916)
ANNEGRET HOBERG & ISABELLE JANSEN
Franz Marc: The Complete Works (Volume I, II & III)
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