Rudolf Zender

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Rudolf Zender: Self-Portrait , around 1925. Oil on canvas. 45 × 37.5 cm

Rudolf Zender (born June 27, 1901 in Rüti ZH ; † November 24, 1988 in Winterthur ; real name: Rudolf Zehnder ) was a Swiss painter , graphic artist and draftsman . He is considered an important representative of Swiss painting and is the most important Winterthur painter of the 20th century.

Life

Origin and education

Zender's signature

Rudolf Zender's ancestors were farmers, his father left the farming world and became a high school teacher. The family name Zehnder is related to the medieval "tithe" (the tax system of that time). The ancestors on his mother's side ran an embroidery factory in Teufen, Appenzell, and his mother was a handicraft teacher.

Rudolf Zender was born on June 27, 1901 in the Zurich Oberland . He spent his childhood together with his three sisters in Fägswil-Rüti. His father worked there as a teacher.

In 1908 the family moved to Winterthur , where Rudolf went to school. During high school he was a member of the Vitodurania student union , to which he remained connected throughout his life. He was given the name "Cato".

Through his classmate Lisa Hahnloser and her parents' collection of paintings, he had his first contact with art. The art collectors Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler were his later sponsors.

After graduating from high school in 1920, he began studying history in Zurich and Heidelberg for the sake of his parents . In Zurich he drew without permission in the dissecting room. In Heidelberg he felt freer, attended painting courses and appeared less and less in lectures. He took up studies in drawing to hone his skill. He tried to copy everything exactly from nature and to represent it according to her, or as he himself said: "... with honesty before nature" .

After the early death of his mother, he trained as a primary school teacher in 1922 , and thanks to his good grades, he received a vicariate position as a secondary teacher . With the money he saved, he traveled to Frankfurt am Main to practice nudes and landscape drawing in the Städel Museum . A first trip to Paris followed. The light and the atmosphere of this city cast a spell over him. His decision to pursue a career as a painter was now made.

Paris

Rudolf Zender's studio in Paris

With a training grant from the city of Winterthur, Zender traveled again to Paris and, together with Wilhelm Gimmi, received training from Roger Bissière , a student of Georges Braque , at the Académie Ranson . After only six months, Bissière dismissed him with the words that there was nothing more he could teach him.

In Paris he also met the painter Carl (Charles) Montag , the friend and painting teacher of Winston Churchill . Monday took Zender to his house, which was in the middle of a large park in Meudon. He found him a studio nearby, where many pictures were taken. Since the house could not be heated, Rudolf Zender suffered a serious lung disease. In 1925 this required a stay at Davos- Clavadel.

At that time Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was working near the sanatorium . Zender was on friendly terms with him and introduced him to printmaking . This artistic encounter was the second important one in Zender's life after the one with Bissière. But Kirchner's “violent palette”, according to Zender, was not compatible with his experience of light and color.

From 1927 he worked again in Paris. A scholarship from the Winterthur Art Association enabled him to travel to Auvergne and Provence . In 1929 Zender exhibited for the first time in the Salon d'Automne . His notes also testify to encounters with the writer Blaise Cendrars .

In 1931 he married Gertrud Kyburz from Winterthur. The young couple bought a modest little house in Mitheuil (near Coulommiers ), where they spent the summer months. He finally made the “h” from the name Ze (h) nder disappear because the French language has no use for it.

Winterthur

In 1932 Zender became a member of the Winterthur artist group . His first exhibition in Switzerland , in 1934 at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur , earned him recognition. Rudolf Zender spent the war years in Winterthur . The award of the EG Bührle Prize marked a breakthrough as a painter.

In 1941 his son Jean-Claude Zehnder was born, who later became an organist and is now recognized as a Bach specialist. In 1943 Zender painted together with René Victor Auberjonois for a few weeks in Sion . This artistic exchange meant Zender's third formative artist acquaintance.

After the Second World War, Rudolf Zender commuted between Paris and Winterthur. His artist friendships included Ernst Leu, Heinz Keller, Walter Sautter, Bruno Bischofberger , Hugo Imfeld, and especially the sculptor couple Otto Charles Bänninger and Germaine Richier , who lived in Zurich during the war.

Germaine Richier later returned to Paris; Zender's important pictures were taken in her studio. In 1957 the city of Winterthur organized a major exhibition homage to Rudolf Zender, together with works by Otto Charles Bänninger. From around 1950 Zender also painted and watercolored in Tuscany and Rome , where, for example, an impressive series of large-format watercolors in the Roman Forum was created.

In 1982 the Paris studio at 49 Rue Beaunier had to be given up. From then on Zender lived in Richterswil , later in Oberwil near Nürensdorf and in Winterthur. In the last years of his life he spent the winter months in Ascona . Here he painted his last watercolors. In Winterthur, Zender put his oil paintings in order with the last of his might, adding a title, date and occasionally a comment. Rudolf Zender died on November 24, 1988 in Winterthur.

plant

Rudolf Zender mastered various techniques, he worked in oil , watercolor , pencil as well as with woodcut and lithography . Throughout his life he stuck to representational representation (despite the then growing dominance of abstract painting ).

Zender is seen as a master of " valeurs " , the ability to achieve brightness values, light and intensity of light through color and application of paint. One of his principles was to create the composition out of color : “ Une valeur est l'intensité de la lumière exprimée par la couleur ”. He remained true to this theorem of Bissière throughout his life.

Rudolf Zender, together with his contemporaries Max Gubler and Varlin , had a strong influence on the face of Swiss painting through his engagement with French painting and German Expressionism . According to his own statement, he never assigned himself to a particular school. According to his own testimony, the artist acquaintances with Bissière, Kirchner and Auberjonois were the ones who had the most influence on him.

Rudolf Zender's pictures depict the simple, the self-evident, the unspectacular, the surroundings and everyday life, always representational and easy to understand. You don't want to confront the viewer with problems, ugly scenes, barren landscapes or war. His subjects are full of sensitivity for the atmospheric, for the fine shades of light. Despite all the freshness and spontaneity, the articulating, compositional element can always be felt in his painting. Every area, every line is carefully placed. The choice of the frame is part of the composition. Although Zender mostly painted his pictures in front of nature, the motifs are reduced to the essentials.

His pictures from the time before the Second World War are characterized by broken colors, typically especially the green, which was tinted by the addition of yellow or brown. In the 1950s, the application of paint became more direct and the contrasts increased. However, the scale of the tone values ​​always remains balanced, be it in the silvery and velvety gray tones, in the earth tones or in the light colors of a sunny spring day.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's influence was most noticeable in Zender's portraits : he was primarily interested in the character traits of his models, the color only filling the forms. The expressive, psychological and formal for a short time gained the upper hand over the picturesque. In the 1930s the portraits became rarer and Kirchner's effect gradually faded.

Incidentally, Rudolf Zender's themes were the everyday things around him: the streets of Paris, the boats on the moving water of the Seine , the metro station with people hurrying by. When it rained, he bought a bouquet of flowers and this is how the still lifes were created . Rudolf Zender's character is portrayed as modest, but in his pictures the “ human condition ” finds an expression that points beyond itself.

  • Cellar in the Clavadel Sanatorium , 1925. Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right. 38 × 55 cm

  • Nu couché , 1958. Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left. 73 × 100 cm

  • L'arrivée de Kennedy à Paris , 1961. Oil on cardboard, signed upper left. 40.5 × 15.5 cm

  • Les arbres brulés . Oil on canvas, signed lower left. 45 × 81 cm

  • Banlieue , 1965. Oil on canvas, signed lower right. 81 × 100 cm

  • Above the roofs of Paris . Oil on canvas. 38 × 55 cm

Awards (selection)

Exhibitions (selection)

Poster for the Kunstmuseum Winterthur: Exhibition Rudolf Zender. November 28, 1976 - January 2, 1977
During his lifetime
  • from 1924: Kunstmuseum Winterthur (group and solo exhibitions)
    • with the artist group Winterthur
    • 1934: First major exhibition
    • 1945: Albert Schnyder - Ernst Suter - Rudolf Zender
    • 1957: Together with sculptures by Otto Charles Bänninger
    • 1976: Anniversary exhibition for the 75th birthday
  • 1930s: Salon des Tuileries , Paris
  • from 1932: Kunsthaus Zürich
  • 1936: Lucerne Art Museum
  • 1936: Venice Biennale
  • 1936–1945: Galerie Aktuaryus, Zurich
  • 1939: Swiss National Exhibition in Zurich
  • 1942: Orell Füssli Gallery, Zurich
  • 1944: Kunstmuseum Bern
  • 1945 and 1947: Kunstverein St. Gallen
  • 1947: Kunstverein St. Gallen. Winterthur painter in the Art Museum St. Gallen. (Together with Alfred Kolb, Hans Schoellhorn, Willy Suter and Gustav Weiss)
  • 1949: Kunsthalle Bern. 4 Winterthur artists
  • 1949, 1950, 1958, 1961, 1964: Kunsthaus Chur
  • from 1950: Zurich country exhibitions
  • from 1950: Kunstsalon Wolfsberg , Zurich (solo and group exhibitions)
    • 1981: Retrospective: Pictures 1930–1980
    • 1986: Last exhibition as a living artist
  • from 1958: Galerie Verena Müller, Bern
  • from 1984: Galerie Noelle Zumofen, Uster
Posthumously
  • 1990: Wolfsberg Art Salon, Zurich. Memorial exhibition
  • 1992: Wolfsberg Art Salon. Group exhibition: Germaine Richier and her artist friends - Swiss artists in the war years
  • 2000/2001: Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Rudolf Zender on the 100th year of his birth
  • 2008: Lake Zurich auctions, Erlenbach. Big retrospective on the 20th year of death
  • 2011–2012: Galleria il Tesoro, Altendorf. Retrospective for the 110th year of birth

Works in museums and collections (selection)

literature

Monographs

  • Bruno Bischofberger: Rudolf Zender (1901–1988) - Peinture. Wolfsberg Art Salon, Zurich 1990.
  • Annette Gersbach: Rudolf Zender - for the 100th birthday. Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 2001.
  • Rudolf Koella, Dino Larese , Eva Friedrich: The painter Rudolf Zender. Dino Larese (ed.). Amriswiler Library, 1976.
  • Max Konzelmann: painter Rudolf Zender. Literary Association, Winterthur 1935.
  • Fritz Laufer: Paris. Original lithographs by Rudolf Zender. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1962.
  • Elisabeth Ott-Schreiner: Rudolf Zender - Retrospective on the 20th year of the artist's death. Lake Zurich Auctions, Erlenbach 2008. (With numerous illustrations, excerpts from letters and memories of Jean-Claude Zehnder, exhibition directory and bibliography.) Online ( Memento from February 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file, 2.1 MB.)
  • Hugo Weihe: Rudolf Zender - The graphic work. Wolfsberg-Verlag, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-85997-009-7 .
  • Hugo Weihe (Ed.): Rudolf Zender. Painter and graphic artist. 1901-1988. Wolfsberg Verlag, Zurich, undated (1996), ISBN 3-85997-019-4 .
  • Jean-Claude Zehnder : Zender . Private printing. Basel 1990.
  • (ON): Artist in the workshop - Rudolf Zender. In: The work. Vol. 34, 1947, H. 7. pp. 237-240. On-line

Secondary literature

  • Lothar Grisebach: EL Kirchner's Davos diary. New edition by Lucius Grisebach. Ostfildern b. Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7757-0622-4 .
  • Rudolf Koella: artist friends around Arthur and Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler. French and Swiss art, 1890 to 1940. Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Anniversary exhibition for the 100th birthday of the collector and the 125th anniversary of the Winterthurer Kunstverein. Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1973.
  • Rudolf Koella and Dieter Schwarz: Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Modern art from the collection of the Kunstverein. Insel Verlag, 1991, ISBN 3-458-16204-6 .
  • Dino Larese and Carl Liner: On the way to the people. Encounters, biographies, documentaries. Huber, Frauenfeld 1979, ISBN 3-7193-0633-X .
  • Walter Läubli: artist portraits. ABC Verlag, Zurich 1974.
  • Swiss Institute for Art Research (Ed.): Lexicon of contemporary Swiss artists. Huber, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart, 1981.
  • Swiss Institute for Art Research (Ed.): Swiss Art of the 20th Century. The National Insurance Collection. Zurich 2005.

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Zender  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Koella, Dino Larese and Eva Friedrich: The painter Rudolf Zender. Amriswiler Bücherei, 1976, p. 13.
  2. ↑ Karl Mietlich: 100 years Vitodurania 1863-1963. K. Grafs Erben printing works, Bülach 1963.
  3. ^ Hugo Weihe: Rudolf Zender. Painter and graphic artist. 1901-1988. Buchbinder Burkhardt, Mönchaltorf, p. 6.
  4. ^ Jean-Claude Zehnder: Zender. Basel, July 1990.
  5. ^ Hugo Weihe: Rudolf Zender. Painter and graphic artist. 1901-1988. Buchbinder Burkhardt, Mönchaltorf, pp. 10/11.
  6. ^ Jean-Claude Zehnder: Zender. Basel, July 1990, p. 5.
  7. ^ Hugo Weihe: Rudolf Zender. Painter and graphic artist. 1901-1988. Buchbinder Burkhardt, Mönchaltorf, p. 57.
  8. ^ Elisabeth Ott-Schreiner: Rudolf Zender. Retrospective on the 20th year of the artist's death. Die Galerie, Zürichsee Auctions, Erlenbach 2008. p. 6.
  9. ^ Jean-Claude Zehnder: Zender. Basel, July 1990, p. IV.
  10. ^ Jean-Claude Zehnder: Zender. Basel, July 1990, p. VII.
  11. ^ Rudolf Koella, Dino Larese and Eva Friedrich: The painter Rudolf Zender. Amriswiler Bücherei, 1976, p. 20.
  12. ^ Rudolf Koella, Dino Larese and Eva Friedrich: The painter Rudolf Zender. Amriswiler Bücherei, 1976, p. 11.
  13. ^ Hugo Weihe: Rudolf Zender. Painter and graphic artist. 1901-1988. Buchbinder Burkhardt, Mönchaltorf, p. 11.
personal data
SURNAME Zender, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zehnder, Rudolf (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, graphic artist and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Rüti ZH
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1988
Place of death Winterthur