Karli Sohn-Rethel Fischer mit Boot um 1935

Carl Ernst "Karli" Sohn-Rethel (1882 – 1966) German

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

painter of the

Düsseldorf school of painting The Düsseldorf school of painting is a term referring to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Düsseldorf Academy (now the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf or Düsseldorf State Art Academy) during the 1830s and 1840s, when the A ...

art movement. He traveled often and was active in Düsseldorf, Munich, Rome,

Positano Positano (Campanian: ) is a village and ''comune'' on the Amalfi Coast (Province of Salerno), in Campania, Italy, mainly in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast. Climate The climate of Positano is very mild, of the Mediterranean ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, among other places. Sohn-Rethel was a member of the art groups, Sonderbund group and

Young Rhineland Young Rhineland (Das Junge Rheinland) was an association of avant-garde artists formed in Düsseldorf on 24 February 1919. History The poet Herbert Eulenberg was one of the main instigators of the group, along with painter Arthur Kaufmann and ...

Biography

Early life

Sohn-Rethel was born 8 May 1882, as the third child of the portrait painter

Karl Rudolf Sohn Karl Friedrich Rudolf Sohn (21 July 1845, Düsseldorf – 29 August 1908, Düsseldorf) was a German portrait painter in the Academic style. Biography His father was the landscape painter, Karl Ferdinand Sohn. After graduating from the , he w ...

and his wife, the artist

Else Sohn-Rethel Elisabeth "Else" Johanna Martha Maria Sohn-Rethel (14 March 1853 – 22 January 1933) was a German painter and singer, active in the mid and late 19th-century. Biography Elisabeth Johanna Martha Maria Rethel was born 14 March 1853 in Rome, I ...

. His mother was the daughter of the painter

Alfred Rethel Alfred Rethel (May 15, 1816December 1, 1859) was a German history painter. Early life and education Rethel was born in Aachen in 1816. He showed an interest in art in his early life, and at the age of thirteen he executed a drawing which procure ...

. His father was the son of

Karl Ferdinand Sohn Karl Ferdinand Sohn (10 December 1805 in Berlin – 25 November 1867 in Cologne) was a German painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography He was born in Berlin and started his studies at the age of eighteen under Wilhelm von Schad ...

. His older brothers were the painters

Alfred Sohn-Rethel Alfred Sohn-Rethel (4 January 1899 – 6 April 1990) was a French-born German Marxian economist and philosopher especially interested in epistemology. His main intellectual achievement was the publication of ''Intellectual and Manual Labour: A C ...

, the father of the philosopher

, and

Otto Sohn-Rethel Otto Wilhelm Sohn-Rethel (1877–1949) German Lepidopterology, lepidopterist and a painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting art movement. Sohn-Rethel was a member of the art groups, Sonderbund westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler, Sonderb ...

. His younger sister Mira was married to the painter

Werner Heuser Werner Heuser (1880–1964) was a German painter, engraver, drafter, and professor. He had been a professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Art Academy) from 1926 until 1937, and he was removed from his position by the ...

. He studied at

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová, ...

(Düsseldorf Art Academy) where he graduated in 1903, and that same year in spring he continued his studies at

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institution is the product o ...

. At Dresden he studied under

Carl Bantzer Carl Ludwig Noah Bantzer (6 August 1857, Schwalmstadt, Ziegenhain – 19 December 1941, Marburg) was a painter, professor and art critic; associated with the . Biography He was born to Heinrich Bantzer (1809–1863), a veterinarian. After his ...

, and

Gotthardt Kuehl Gotthardt Kuehl (28 November 1850 – 9 January 1915) was a German painter and a representative of early German Impressionism. He gained wide international recognition during his lifetime. Life and work His father, Simon Kühl, was the Sex ...

Career and later life

After he completed his training, he traveled to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

to meet up with his brother Otto, his brother-in-law Werner Heuser, and artists

Karl Hofer Karl Christian Ludwig Hofer or ''Carl Hofer'' (11 October 1878, Karlsruhe – 3 April 1955, Berlin) was a German expressionist painter. He was director of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. One of the most prominent painters of expressioni ...

, Hermann Haller and

Maurice Sterne Maurice Sterne ( lv, Moriss Šterns, 1877 or 1878 – July 23, 1957), was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923. Biography Stern ...

. Sohn-Rethel was in Rome from 1906 until 1912. In 1911, Karli Sohn-Rethel joined the '' Sonderbund group'' with other Düsseldorf painters. These painters included Julius Bretz,

Max Clarenbach Max Clarenbach (19 May 1880 – 9 July 1952) was a German painter. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. References External links * 1880 births 1952 deaths 20th-cen ...

August Deusser August Deusser (15 February 1870, in Cologne – 28 October 1942, in Konstanz) was a German painter and art professor, at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Life and work From 1892 to 1897, he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; finishing ...

Walter Ophey Walter Hugo Ophey (25 March 1882 – 11 January 1930) was a German painter and graphic designer, known for Rhenish Expressionism. He was a member of the Sonderbund group and Young Rhineland art groups. Biography Walter Hugo Ophey was born o ...

, Wilhelm Schmurr, and his brothers

and

. From this experience, he joined

Alfred Flechtheim Alfred Flechtheim (1 April 1878 – 9 March 1937) was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis. Early years Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a g ...

's gallery. From October 1912 to May 1914, Sohn-Rethel traveled and painted with his friend Maurice Sterne, they visited

Tunis ''Tounsi'' french: Tunisois , population_note = , population_urban = , population_metro = 2658816 , population_density_km2 = , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

;

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

, India;

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fo ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

;

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, Indonesia; and Bali. He returned to Europe and it was the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and he stayed in Munich. In 1919 he joined the art Young Rhineland art group. He took part in the opening of the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim that same year, in 1919. After the end of World War I, he moved in 1920–1921 to

, Italy and socialized with

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

Siegfried Kracauer Siegfried Kracauer (; ; February 8, 1889 – November 26, 1966) was a German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist. He has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is notable for a ...

Ernst Bloch Ernst Simon Bloch (; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinkers ...

, and Alfred Kantorowicz. Sohn-Rethel emigrated to Italy during the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...

of Germany, around 1933. He stayed with his painter friend Kurt Craemer in Positano, Italy, a city he had visited earlier in 1920.

Death and legacy

In 1959, Sohn-Rethel moved back to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he died on 7 April 1966. He is buried at Nordfriedhof Düsseldorf cemetery. WWII would destroy much of his works although some of his works survived. These surviving paintings are held at the Suermondt-Ludwig and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. His work is in various public museum collections including Provincial Art Gallery of

Salerno Salerno (, , ; nap, label= Salernitano, Saliernë, ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' in Campania (southwestern Italy) and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after ...

, among others.

Work

Sohn-Rethel's early works were inspired by the works of artists Cezanne and

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

. Later in life he created his own expressionist style. His style of painting was influenced by the abstract human figure in his landscape studies. He often rendered people's faces as abstract ovals. During his time living in

, he often depicted fishermen on the beach and groups of locals in his paintings.Iris Marzik: ''Eine Einführung in das Leben und Werk von Karli Sohn-Rethel''. In: Karli Sohn-Rethel 1882–1966. Gemälde, Gouachen, Zeichnungen. Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg 1988, S. 22

References

External links

Artist: Carl Ernst Sohn-Rethel
in European Paintings and Drawings 1905-1915, Database of Modern Exhibitions (DoME), Institute for Art History at

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sohn-Rethel, Karli 1882 births 1966 deaths German male painters Artists from Düsseldorf Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni Dresden Academy of Fine Arts Düsseldorf school of painting