Otto Ritschl (painter)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Otto Ritschl (born August 9, 1885 in Erfurt , † July 1, 1976 in Wiesbaden ) was a main representative of abstract art in Germany, who lived and worked in Wiesbaden .

Life

Otto Ritschl was born in Erfurt as the son of a businessman. From 1908 he lives and works in Wiesbaden . From 1939 to 1942 he was obliged to work at the Wiesbaden tax office. Ritschl dies at the age of 91 in 1976 in Wiesbaden.

plant

Ritschl begins his professional career as a writer. In 1915 his first play was “The Accounting Director. Comedy in three acts ”premiered at the Hamburg Thalia Theater. From 1918 on, however, he turned away from his work as a writer and began to paint. In this first painting phase, Ritschl practiced expressionist works that were under the influence of Oskar Kokoschka . After a socially critical interlude in the New Objectivity style , he turned to contemporary art in France in the mid-1920s and made several trips to Paris . There were encounters with Pablo Picasso and Max Ernst . In 1925 he destroyed the works he had painted until then and dealt with Surrealism as well as Cubism , especially that of Georges Braque . Ritschl now paints non-representational, influenced by the forms and symbols of Surrealism and Cubism. Ritschl founded the Free Art Association Wiesbaden in 1925 . From 1929 at the latest he became acquainted with Alexej Jawlensky .

The exhibition in the Folkwang Museum from 1933, in which Ritschl participated with his own works, was closed by the National Socialists . He is now one of the degenerate artists and from now on only paints in secret.

After the war, from 1945 onwards, he produced paintings and drawings that were strongly influenced by Picasso and the modern age of the 1930s. He was increasingly able to overcome these models and, in the 1950s, found a personal, abstract style of painting based on stricter geometric constructivist forms. Ritschl met Ernst Wilhelm Nay around 1950 and won his friendship, while at the same time he was in contact with Max Ackermann . Otto Ritschl is one of the first members of the German Artists Association 1950 , which was re-established in 1950 , at whose first exhibition he was represented in 1951 in the rooms of the Berlin University of the Arts with 2 abstract compositions.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Otto Ritschl broke away from the rigor and clarity of his painting. The forms become softer, finely graded transitions and differentiations find their way into his pictures. From around 1960, the seemingly floating discs of color that dominate his paintings create monochrome “meditation images”. But Ritschl continues to paint pictures with fields of color, blurred, soft, cloud-like shapes, which in the late work of the mid-1960s often had a bright color.

Otto Ritschl's student was Wolff Mirus.

Otto Ritschl Prize

The Otto Ritschl Museum Association, which looks after the artist's estate, has been awarding the Otto Ritschl Prize in collaboration with the Wiesbaden Museum since 2001 , which includes prize money and the purchase of a work as well as an exhibition by the winner. The previous winners were Gotthard Graubner (2001), Ulrich Erben (2003), Kazuo Katase (2009) and Katharina Grosse (2015).

Exhibitions

Awards

literature

  • Ritschl, Otto. In Hans Vollmer : General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. Fourth volume: Q − U. Study edition. Seemann, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-363-00730-2 , pp. 74/75.
  • Carl Emde: "Art stands between golden calves and crosses". For Otto Ritschl's 35th birthday. In: Wiesbaden life. Volume 19, 9/1970, p. 10 f.
  • Alexander Hildebrand: The portrait. Otto Ritschl. In: Wiesbaden International. 1/1971, p. 35 ff.
  • Otto Ritschl: The Complete Works 1919–1972. Introduction by Kurt Leonhard. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1973.
  • Alexander Hildebrand: Ritschl and pure painting. In: Wiesbaden International. 1/1974, p. 25 ff.
  • Alexander Hildebrand: The painter Otto Ritschl (1885–1976). In the international game of forces. In: Wiesbaden International. 3/1983, p. 31 ff.
  • Mirus, Wolff (ed.): Otto Ritschl. The catalog raisonné 1919-1976. Hirmer, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-7774-2748-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ch., From Artists and Scholars, Wiesbaden, Der Cicerone, Vol. XVIII, 1926, p. 683.
  2. ↑ Bernd Fäthke, Alexej Jawlensky, heads etched and painted, Die Wiesbadener Jahre, Galerie Draheim, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 37 f, fig. 39.
  3. ^ Deutscher Künstlerbund 1950: First exhibition in Berlin 1951 , exhibition catalog (without page numbers). Otto Ritschl: (176/177) each abstract composition , oil on canvas, 1950, 97x130 cm.
  4. ↑ Wissenschaft.hessen.de: Directory of the Goethe plaques awarded from September 1952 ( memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed December 17, 2015). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / Wissenschaft.hessen.de
  5. ↑ a b c Otto Ritschl on galerie-weick.com.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ritschl, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1976
Place of death Wiesbaden