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Rudolf Bauer
Invention
(Komposition 31), 1933
Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,
Gift,
Solomon R. Guggenheim
Photo:
David Heald
©2005 Estate
of Rudolf Bauer
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Hilla von Rebay
Gavotte,
1947
Collection Halstead
International,
courtesy
Portico New York, Inc.
Photo
Portico New York, Inc.
©The
Hilla von Rebay Foundation.
Used
by permission.
All rights
reserved
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Von Rebay admired the musicality of Bauer’s non-objective
paintings; to her mind, he was the "Johann
Sebastian Bach of painting." The important role the theme of music
played in his art is also testified to by the titles of the works shown at
the Deutsche Guggenheim, such as White Fugue (1923-27) or Symphony
in Three Parts (1930-34), in which colorful, often hard-edge geometric
forms are arranged in rhythmic compositions. Von Rebay’s works also
frequently refer to music, such as her painting Gavotte (1947),
whose title is borrowed from a Baroque form of composition with a lively
rhythm and its own dance. A blue-violet fog of color, attenuated red
rectangles, and swinging yellow and blue lines shaped like crescent moons
unite to form a highly decorative composition.
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Hilla von Rebay
Frau
in Rot, um 1928
Privatbesitz,
courtesy Gary Snyder Fine
Art, New York
Photo Jason
Silva
©The Hilla von Rebay
Foundation.
Used by
permission.
All rights
reserved
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Hilla von Rebay
Komposition
I, 1915 (?)
Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photo
David Heald
©The Hilla von
Rebay Foundation.
Used by
permission.
All rights
reserved
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Von Rebay’s strongest works are her very independent
collages, which testify to her feeling for rhythm and subtle color
gradations. Already in Germany, she combined colored strips and pieces of
paper to form suspended compositions. These were later followed by
figurative collages portraying elegant society women, actresses, or a Woman
in Red (1928) with an extravagant black hat whose red dress is
composed from a few thin strips of paper. In front of an empty background,
the slightly elongated figure comes across as both mannerist and abstract.
Hilla
von Rebay’s interest in music and dance is also apparent in her almost
caricature-like drawings, which record her impressions of the jazz clubs
of New York. In Tulips de Harlem, an African American couple is
dancing the Charleston
– closely intertwined and entirely immersed in the music. These images
elaborate on influences from her Berlin years, such as the expressive
paper works of Otto Dix
and George Grosz,
who were also attentive observers of big-city nightlife.
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Hilla von Rebay
Lyrische
Erfindung, 1939
Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photo
David Heald
©The Hilla von
Rebay Foundation.
Used by
permission.
All rights
reserved
|
The show at the Deutsche Guggenheim proves that Hilla von
Rebay (read an extensive interview here)
was underestimated as an artist for many years. Particularly in her
collages, a medium neither Kandinsky nor Bauer worked in, she pursued her
own very individual path. Her paintings give rise to a free cosmos of
geometric and organic forms that radiate a positive energy. Hilla von
Rebay, involved throughout her life with the theosophical teachings of H.
P. Blavatsky and Rudolf
Steiner, always stressed the spiritual meaning of her art – and that
"non-objective paintings are the key to a world of immaterial elevation."
Art
of Tomorrow: Hilla von Rebay und Solomon R. Guggenheim
13. May –
13. August 2006
Deutsche Guggenheim
Unter den Linden 13-15
Berlin
[1]
[2]
[3]
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