Johannes Rath (painter)

Johannes Rath, balcony over the street (lightly laid), 71/50, watercolor, 1950, 22.5 cm × 29.5 cm

Johannes Rath (born March 28, 1910 in Opole / Upper Silesia , † December 7, 1973 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German painter and pastor.

Johannes Rath, Andeutungen, 1506–57, mixed media on Japanese paper, 1957, 61 cm × 75 cm

Johannes Rath, Study of a Hole in the Earth, A-1394-1957, mixed media on paper, 1957, 46 cm × 60.5 cm

Life

Johannes Rath spent his childhood and youth in nearby Dambrau and later in the Lower Silesian capital, Wroclaw . After a brief flirtation with the subject of archeology, he decided to become a painter at the age of 21: A first encounter with pictures by Paul Klee in Dresden and Berlin left deep marks. From 1931 he studied at the Breslau art school, which was directed by the Silesian impressionist Artur Wasner. After just two years, in 1933, Rath was able to draw attention to itself with its first exhibition. According to a biographical note from the exhibition brochure of the Kasseler Kunstverein from 1967, the new rulers, who branded his work as degenerate art and forced him to only be artistically active , also attracted attention .

In 1936 he made the existential decision in favor of the priestly profession for the rest of his life, which led him to Stuttgart to study at the Christian Community's seminary . Consecrated in 1939, he found his first pastor in Frankfurt am Main . After the Christian community was banned in 1941, he returned to Silesia , was drafted into the armed forces and did military service until 1945. Almost all of his early artistic work was lost at the end of the war.

Rath returned to Frankfurt as early as August 1945, resumed his work as a pastor and immediately devoted himself to his painterly work. Like many artists of his generation who were cut off from international modernism by the Nazi cultural policy, he was filled with a burning curiosity about the art that had hitherto been ostracized. From 1948 to 1950 he attended exhibitions in Frankfurt ( Oskar Schlemmer and Pablo Picasso , abstract paintings from the USA), Basel and Munich ( Der Blaue Reiter ), and in 1953 in Lucerne a large presentation of German art of classical modernism . At the same time, he himself offered courses in the Frankfurt Volksbildungswerk that deal with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as a visual artist, the artists' association “Der Blaue Reiter”, but also modern painting.

In the Main metropolis, which is still largely in ruins, Johannes Rath also met the painter Heinz Kreutz in the Franck room gallery . Together with Bernard Schultze , Otto Greis and Karl Otto Götz, he was one of the so-called neo - expansionists who formed the Quadriga (group of artists) . Kreutz and Rath cultivated a lively exchange and inspired each other. In November 1950 they met for a public discussion in the Volksbildungswerk as part of the series “Talks with Frankfurt painters”. Rath wrote several introductory texts for his friend's exhibitions.

In 1964 and 1966, together with the Frankfurt painter Harald de Bary, he made trips to Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, where the main focus was on the art of the Old Masters. In the years 1967 to 1969 he also created oil paintings, primarily with representational motifs, which come close to what he had called pictures in the real sense in his diaries. He was sponsored by, among others, Erich Herzog , director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel since 1962 , who repeatedly acquired works by Johannes Rath and presented them in the exhibition he curated "Modernism in Germany - Drawings and Watercolors from the Hessian Museums" . It took place in 1972 in the KasselerKunstVerein parallel to documenta 5 .

Johannes Rath was artistically active until the end. 7 days before his death he was still completing an altarpiece from the scaffolding in Heidenheim .

plant

Johannes Rath left behind mostly graphics, including oil paintings, objects made from beach wood, among others, and collages, as well as notes, small prose pieces and poems.

According to his diary notes, his lost early work was mostly about landscapes. The watercolors from 1945 to 1953 take up this theme again. Some of them are still representational in character, but their tendency towards abstraction and dissolution of form is also based on the state of art at that time. In addition to the love for the old masters, the development of painting up to the present is an urgent concern for him. From 1954 onwards, the dominance of the graphic element, for which Rath was initially inspired by structures derived from the observation of nature, is striking. Many sheets, especially from the years 1956 to 1960, are committed to the informal art that dominated those years, whose representatives initially included the Frankfurt painter Heinz Kreutz, who was a friend of his. In the search for the “simplest” line, more and more drawings emerged from 1960/61 onwards, and then canvas works at the end of the 1960s. As a confirmation of his own orientation, Rath had already noted in 1962 that one could no longer say abstract or objective based on a dictum by Hans Platschek . Parallel to his free graphic and painterly work, which always emerged in the field of tension between representational, abstract and informal art, Johannes Rath created 14 large pictures on the subject of "Death and Resurrection of Christ" for altars of the Christian community from 1959 onwards.

Exhibitions

• 1933: Breslau
• 1949: Musikhochschule Heidelberg, December 10th - 12th, on the occasion of a painting course, concert and lecture by Johannes Rath
• 1954: Galerie Martinet, Amsterdam, 7th - 27. October
• 1955: Bank of German countries , Frankfurt am Main (group exhibition), 11 - 15 February
• 1964: Taunus-Bücherstube W. Gurlitt, Mainz, April 18 - May 15
• 1967: Henri Pfeiffer and Johannes Rath. Kasseler Kunstverein, January 15 - February 12
• 1972: Modernism in Germany. Drawings and watercolors from the possession of Hessian museums. Kasseler Kunstverein, August 5th - September 15th
• 1972: Galerie Lambrette, Frankfurt am Main, November 13th - December 2nd
• 1989: Gallery in the Rudolf Steiner House, Stuttgart, January 22nd - March 15th
• 1990: galerie spectrum, Frankfurt am Main, February 8th - March 8th
• 1991–1994: Galerie Wasserweg 4, Frankfurt am Main, February 8 - March 6, 1991; 12. - June 25, 1992; December 3, 1993 - late March 1994
• 2017–2018: Cabinet exhibition donated by Johannes Rath, Märkisches Museum (Witten) , August 16, 2017 - January 14, 2018

From 1948 to the present day there were repeated exhibitions in rooms of the Christian community. A retrospective is planned for 2020 at the Museum Giersch , Frankfurt am Main, in cooperation with the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie , Regensburg.

Publications

• 17 small prose pieces. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1969.
• To the blue water mill. A myth about people. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1970. ISBN 3-87838-141-7 .
• The Attic girl. Seven stories. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1974. ISBN 3-87838-178-6 .
• In the Delian circle. Records of refusal, withdrawal, renunciation and ability. Edited and with a contribution by Klas Diederich. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1990. ISBN 3-87838-654-0 .
• The rabbi and the rose. Literary miniatures. With an afterword by Klas Diederich. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 2010. ISBN 978-3-8251-7734-8 .
• Wind my brother. Early stories, poems, watercolors. Edited by Elke Jordy u. Irene Kappel. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2010. ISBN 978-3-8391-1169-7 .
• The Trial of the Word - Notes. From early diaries, Breslau 1930 - Frankfurt am Main 1951. With an afterword by Gabriele Pattberg. Ed. Elke Jordy u. Irene Kappel. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2010. ISBN 978-3-8391-4835-8 .
• Milano - Firenze - Roma - Napoli 1964. An art journey . With an afterword by Harald de Bary. Ed. Irene Kappel u. Harald de Bary. Dielmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010. ISBN 978-3-86638-146-9 .
• On the way. Records with sketches, drawings, pictures. Ed. Elke Jordy u. Irene Kappel. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2012.
  • I Southern Germany, Switzerland and Northern Italy. ISBN 978-3-8482-1641-3 .
  • II Holland, Belgium, Northern France - Norway and Denmark. ISBN 978-3-8482-1603-1 .
  • III Southern France, Italy and Greece. ISBN 978-3-8482-1881-3 .
  • IV Egypt and Israel. ISBN 978-3-8482-1995-7 .
  • V Streiflichter on work and life in West Germany 1945–1973. ISBN 978-3-8482-2106-6 .
• Practiced perception. A trip to Rome. Texts and drawings - an anti-essay. Ed. Elke Jordy u. Irene Kappel. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2017. ISBN 978-3-7448-1651-9 .

literature

• Henri Pfeiffer and Johannes Rath . Brochure for the exhibition at the Kasseler Kunstverein from January 15 to February 12, 1967, exhibition management: Walter Nikusch, Kassel 1967.
• Modernism in Germany - drawings and watercolors owned by Hessian museums. Catalog for the exhibition at the Kassler Kunstverein from August 15 to September 15, 1972, selection of images and text: Erich Herzog, Kassel 1972.
• Reprinted with an extended introduction by Erich Herzog as an annual edition of the Hessische Brandversicherungsanstalt, Kassel 1974.
• Johannes Rath - priest and artist. Thematic focus. In: The Christian Community. Magazine for religious renewal, 82. volume, issue 1453/2010, Stuttgart 2010, ISSN 0009-5184, page 114 - 145th
• Ulrich Etscheit: Johannes Rath. A Frankfurt painter caught between representational, abstract and informal art . In: Yearbook 2015 Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, ed. Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel u. Bernd Küster, Kassel 2017, ISBN 978-3-7319-0503-5 , pp. 102-107.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Henri Pfeiffer and Johannes Rath . Brochure for the exhibition at the Kasseler Kunstverein from January 15 to February 12, 1967, exhibition director: Walter Nikusch, Kassel 1967. S [6]
2. ↑ Auf dem Weg V, p. 66, February 18, 1965: "... the picture is still to come ..." and earlier there, p. 63, May 5, 1957: "... the process of painting on the canvases (the pictures! ) ... "
3. ↑ Auf dem Weg V, p. 65, January 3, 1962: “- - the simple - for me the 'simplest' line”.
4. ↑ Hans Platschek, Pictures as Question Marks , Munich 1972, p. 74. On April 25, 1962, Rath quotes from it in his handwritten diary without page numbers, but with underlining: “ Ideological questions such as 'abstract or representational' mean nothing anymore .. . " . Cf. also: Auf dem Weg V , p. 65, October 30, 1962: "When I was ready, I thought I had reached the not entirely open point at which the absurdity between 'abstract' and 'concrete' to differentiate not only appears as a problem, but 'really' realized in the visible ”.