Rupprecht Geiger (26 January 1908 – 6 December 2009) was a German
abstract painter
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.
Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19t ...
and sculptor. Throughout his career, he favored monochromicity and color-field paintings. For a time, he concentrated solely on the color red.
Life and work
![Gasteig Philharmonie mit der Skulptur Gerundetes Blau von Rupprecht Geiger im Vordergrund 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Gasteig_Philharmonie_mit_der_Skulptur_Gerundetes_Blau_von_Rupprecht_Geiger_im_Vordergrund_1.jpg)
Geiger was born in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, the only child of painter
Willi Geiger. Besides Germany, the family spent time in Spain, and he also joined his father on trips to Morocco and the Canary Islands. It was on these trips that Geiger began painting. From 1926 through 1935, he studied and taught architecture and art at academic institutions in Munich. From 1936 to 1940, he worked as an architect at several firms, also in Munich. He was called up to fight in World War II and was at the Eastern Front in Poland and Russia, and then in 1943 and 1944 he was a war illustrator in the Ukraine and Greece. He exhibited his first abstract painting in 1948.
After the war, from 1949 to 1962, he was again active as an architect. In 1949, Geiger co-founded the Munich artists' group
ZEN 49
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text=:ja:禅, 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a East Asian Buddhism, school of Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Ch ...
.
Hilla von Rebay
Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the ...
chose to exhibit his artwork at the
Museum for Non-Objective Painting (later the Guggenheim Foundation).
Stunde 0 Hilla von Rebay und Rupprecht Geiger / ZEN 49
(German)
From 1965 to 1976, Geiger was professor of painting at Staatlichen Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
His paintings are often concerned with the theme of color. In the 1950s, he particularly studied the color red. Geiger's paintings are characterized by simple geometric forms (rectangles, ovals, circles), bright colors, and intense contrasts. The Diozesanmuseum Freising near Munich possesses a collection of his works.
Exhibitions
Major international exhibitions of Rupprecht Geiger's long career included four in the German city of Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
:
* documenta II (1959)
* documenta III (1964)
* 4. documenta (1968)
* documenta 6 (1977)
Awards
In 1989, Geiger earned the Kultureller Ehrenpreis der Landeshauptstadt München. In 1992, he was awarded The Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen, in 1995 the Oberbayerischer Kulturpreis, and in 1997 the Goldene Ehrenmünze der Landeshauptstadt München.
See also
* List of German painters
This is a list of German painters.
A
> second column was into info box -->
* Hans von Aachen (1552–1615)
* Aatifi (born 1965)
* Karl Abt (1899–1985)
* Tomma Abts (born 1967)
* Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910)
* Oswald Achenbach (1827 ...
References
External links
Biografie auf der Seite der Galerie Edith Wahlandt, Stuttgart
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geiger, Rupprecht
20th-century German painters
German male painters
21st-century German painters
21st-century German male artists
Abstract painters
1908 births
2009 deaths
Artists from Munich
German centenarians
Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Academic staff of Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
20th-century German sculptors
20th-century German male artists
German male sculptors
Men centenarians