Hans Rilke

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Hans Rilke , also Hans Benno Rilke (born October 8, 1891 in Rheydt ; died August 6, 1946 in Düsseldorf ), was a German painter and drawing teacher.

life and work

Fairy tale frieze in the classroom of the preschool class of the Prinz-Georg-Gymnasium
On the Run (1910)

Hans Benno Rilke was born in Rheydt as the youngest of four children of the businessman F. Stephan Rilke and his wife Elisabeth Schürmann. He began his artistic training in 1908 at the Karlsruhe Art Academy . In 1910 he moved to Düsseldorf, where he first attended the drawing teacher seminar, then from 1914 to 1917 the arts and crafts school . As early as 1911, Rilke was commissioned to design a fairy tale frieze in the royal Prinz-Georg-Gymnasium in Pempelfort . From 1915 he earned his living by a permanent position as a drawing teacher. In 1919 he married the artist Lisa Hartlieb . In the same year, both joined the Düsseldorf Activist Association . In 1920 Hans Rilke joined the group Das Ey , in 1922 he became a member of the artists' association Das Junge Rheinland and exhibited at Johanna Ey in Düsseldorf.

While Hans Rilke's early work can be assigned to Expressionism , his style of painting changed from 1920 to the styles of New Objectivity and Surrealism . He was influenced u. a. by Gert Wollheim and George Grosz . His motifs were often milieu-determined with a socially critical view, such as in the pictures Die Waiting (1920), Large City Eats Women (1921), the woodcut Auf der Flucht or the studies of patients in the psychiatric clinic.

In 1922 the son Jochen was born as the only child of the two artists. The family lived in Düsseldorf's zoo district until 1930 and then moved to Lantzallee. During this time, Hans Rilke's artistic activities decreased. He was involved as a drawing teacher at the Düsseldorf Realgymnasium on Rethelstrasse and was appointed senior teacher there in 1941.

War and post-war period

During the Second World War , the artist couple and school classes were evacuated to Thuringia . During the bombing in 1945, the Rilke's house was largely destroyed, parts of his work were possibly destroyed, another part was initially lost. At the end of 1945 the couple returned to Düsseldorf. The son, who served as a medic in the war, has been missing in Russia since 1944. Hans Rilke took another job as a teacher at the Leibniz-Gymnasium (Düsseldorf) . He died of stomach cancer on August 6, 1946.

At the request of Hans Rilke, Lisa Hartlieb-Rilke drew her husband during the time of the serious illness in the hope that the son would return home, which however did not come true.

Rediscovery and exhibition

Hans Rilke's works were lost for a long time and were considered destroyed by the effects of the war, until a suitcase with drawings was discovered at a Duisburg flea market . A Düsseldorf gallery acquired the find and exhibited the drawings for the first time. In 1993, the Rheydt Castle City Museum acquired Rilke's estate in order to exhibit it in the artist's hometown. The estate of around 450 sheets, woodcuts , linocut prints , charcoal and ink drawings and an early oil painting from 1912 were first exhibited there in 1996. Another exhibition took place there in 2016 on the 70th anniversary of his death. His works are also available on the art market.

literature

  • Helmut Schrey: Vagabonding pictures: from an artist's life and afterlife: Hans Rilke (1891 - 1946); almost a family novel . Gilles & Franke, 1999, ISBN 978-3-925348-52-5 .
  • Christiane Zangs (Ed.): Hans Rilke. (October 8, 1891 Rheydt - August 6, 1946 Düsseldorf): Exhibition at the Rheydt Castle Museum from August 25 to December 29, 1996 , ISBN 978-3-925256-48-6 .
  • Hans Rilke . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 6 , supplements H-Z . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1962.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The fairy tale frieze in the lowest preschool class of the Kgl. Prinz-Georg-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf , in Rhine and Düssel (No. 38) on September 16, 1911
  2. ↑ a b "Rhenish Expressionist Hans Rilke died 70 years ago" , Focus: August 3, 2016 , accessed on October 31, 2016.
  3. ↑ Newsroom of the website of the city of Mönchengladbach from August 3, 2016 ( Memento from November 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 5, 2016.
  4. ^ Exhibition 2016 on Youtube , accessed on November 1, 2016.
  5. ↑ Hans Rilke on Artnet , accessed on November 1, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Rilke, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rilke, Hans Benno
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and drawing teacher
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheydt
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1946
Place of death Dusseldorf