Carl Rabus

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Carl Rabus

Carl Johann Rabus (born May 30, 1898 in Kempten , † July 28, 1983 in Murnau am Staffelsee ) was an expressionist artist who was persecuted by the National Socialists . After 1945 he dealt intensively with abstract painting.

Life

After studying with Angelo Jank at the Munich Academy and first exhibitions with Hans Goltz in Munich and in the Sturm-Galerie in Berlin, Rabus worked in Berlin as a book and magazine illustrator from 1923 . He published in the magazines Eulenspiegel , Orchideengarten and Jugend . In the following years he continued to develop. Pen-and-ink drawings, ink drawings, woodcuts and linocuts were created, which took up a large part of his early years, pencil drawings, watercolors, oil paintings; later also behind glass pictures and hand-knotted tapestries. Many of his works were created “on site” in the years up to 1974: among others in Spain, France, Austria, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Switzerland and Belgium, where he was granted asylum. There James Ensor, one of the great painters of his time, paid tribute to the young German: “A rousing watercolorist with moderation. One sees Carl Rabus, the one who works beyond the norm, as one of the greats ”. A few years later, Albert Einstein from the USA wrote to Carl Rabus, among other things: "I have received your work and am impressed by the immediacy of the effect of your drawings" - meaning the 15-part linoleum cycle "The Passion".

In 1927 the young artist returned to Munich after his Berlin years. In 1934 he went into exile in Vienna , where he met the Jewish photographer Erna Adler, his future wife. In Vienna he exhibited at Würthle, the Hagenbund and the Neue Galerie. Due to the impending annexation of Austria to the German Reich , both fled to Brussels , but were arrested on May 10, 1940 after the German military invaded Belgium . Erna Adler was released again; Carl Rabus was transported to the St. Cyprien internment camp in southern France. There he also met the German painter Felix Nussbaum, who was later murdered with his wife in Auschwitz. Rabus is represented with various works in the Nussbaum Museum Osnabrück.

In 1943 Carl Rabus was arrested again for racial disgrace and taken to prison in Vienna. In 1944 Carl Rabus and Erna Adler married. After the war there were alternating stays in Essen , Munich and Brussels, where he painted a large mural in the helicopter station of the airline Sabena. He also stayed temporarily in the USA and Israel. In the post-war years he changed his artistic style and developed abstract graphics and oil paintings. In 1974 Carl and Erna Rabus settled in Murnau. In 1983 Carl Rabus died while bathing in the Staffelsee. His widow Erna later said: “I stood on the bank and couldn't help him”.

Works

  • Woodcuts and linocuts with Christian motifs, pen and ink brush drawings, and landscape watercolors from the 1920s
  • Crucifixion , 1923
  • At the Stadtbach in Munich, painting 1923
  • Great Supper 1923
  • Madonna in the Vineyard 1923
  • Even in the mirror , 1923
  • Couple , 1925
  • The waiting woman , 1927
  • Early winter , 1927
  • Kornmandl in Valais in 1928
  • Asleep , 1928
  • Landscape with electricity pylons , 1928
  • Freight steamer in the harbor , 1932
  • Sailing ship in the port of Ostend, 1935
  • At the pier (in Ostend), 1935/39
  • “Clochards on the Seine” (about 30 pencil drawings) Paris 1936
  • The judgment of Paris. Painting 1936
  • Two friends (even with Ernst Vogenauer ) - painting, 1937
  • St. Cyprien (camp views), 1940
  • St. Cyprien (reclining inmate in front of barbed wire), 1940
  • St. Cyprien (Seated Camp Inmate - Head Lowered on Arms), 1940
  • Even in the mirror shard (cm 72.8 x 59), 1943
  • The 3 Magi probably in the 1960s
  • Passion 1945 Woodcuts: 15-part cycle: Devant le mur , 1945 (title page of the cycle), Brother anoint your feet! The road ahead of you is difficult !, 1945 sheet 2, The times see sill. What is time Wait, wait, patience is everything !, 1945 sheet 7, cachette (hiding place): Without hope! And your hands are empty !, 1945 sheet 9, flee, flee, flee-from what? vor Allen !, 1945 sheet 11, Chemin de la mort, (The way of death), So they pass, bearing their burden, 1945 sheet 13, Even in St. Cyprien, 1945. From the series Passion: Geôle (prison) , 1945, From the series Passion: Hope, 1945.
  • 50 unknown drawings: Erna Rabus gave the Buchheim Museum 50 drawings that Carl Rabus made in the St. Cyprien internment camp. They were the inspiration for the linoleum cycle “Passion”, which Rabus made in 1946 and which the collector Roland Krüppel gave to the Buchheim Museum as a gift.

Book illustrations

  • Joseph Roth : April, the story of a love , cover and pictures by Carl Rabus, JHW ​​Dietz successor, Berlin 1924 (first edition), OCLC 247021884 .
  • Hans Wolff: Astrological forecast. With drawings by Carl Rabus. Munich. Jati Publishing House 1922.
  • In addition, various works including works by Honoré de Balzac, Alfred Döblin, JW von Goethe, ETA Hoffmann, CM Wieland

Works in collections

Exhibitions

  • Ostracized: Forbidden: Forgotten: Galerie Bernd Dürr GmbH Munich, 1990
  • Carl Rabus retrospective Sparkasse Kempten on the 100th birthday in 1996
  • "From expressive early work to abstract composition". Historic administration building of the government of Upper Bavaria in Munich 1997
  • Painting and graphics, Murnau Castle Museum 2006
  • Art against oblivion: Herrsching Public Administration College 2009
  • Carl Rabus “Traces of the Past” - Center d'Art Contemporain de Saint Cyprien 2011
  • Carl Rabus - PASSION: Buchheim Museum 2018

Group exhibition

Honors

  • His hometown Kempten has dedicated a street ⊙ to him.

literature

  • Eva Chrambach:  Rabus, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 76 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Murnau Castle Museum (ed.): Carl Rabus (1898–1983). Painting and graphics . Exhibition catalog Buchheim Museum 2018. Roland Krüppel and Daniel J. Schreiber
  • Master's thesis by Barbara Schnabel (Institute for Art History LMU Munich) October 2006
  • Matthias Arnold in the catalog “Discovered Modernism” (Gerhard Schneider Collection) 2008

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rabus, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rabus, Carl Johann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 30, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Kempten
DATE OF DEATH July 28, 1983
Place of death Murnau am Staffelsee