Hans Richter | |
|---|---|
 Richterc. 1928 | |
| Born | Hans Johannes Siegfried Richter (1888-04-06)6 April 1888 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 1 February 1976(1976-02-01) (aged 87) Minusio, Switzerland |
| Occupation(s) | Painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film maker, animation producer |
| Years active | 1914–1961 |
| Spouse | Meta Erna Niemeyer (aka Ré Soupault) |
Hans Johannes Siegfried Richter (/ˈrɪktər/;German:[ˈʁɪçtɐ]; 6 April 1888 – 1 February 1976) was a GermanDada painter,graphic artist,avant-garde film producer, andart historian. In 1965 he authored the bookDadaism about the history of theDada movement.[1][2] He was born inBerlin into a well-to-do family and died inMinusio, nearLocarno, Switzerland.[3]
FromExpressionism through Dadaism,Constructivism andNeoplasticism, he was one of the major figures of avant-garde art in the 1910s and 1920s[3] and a catalyst forintellectuals and artists in manydisciplines. Richter helped organise exhibitions which revived interest in Dada, both in the United States and Europe. In 1956 he madeDadascope, a film dedicated to Dada poetry.
In 1908 Richter entered the Academy of Fine Art in Berlin, and the following year the Academy ofFine Art in Weimar. Richter's first contacts withModern Art were in 1912 through theBlaue Reiter and in 1913 through theErster Deutscher Herbstsalon galleryDer Sturm, in Berlin. In 1914 he was influenced byCubism.
At that time he also befriended Franz Pfemfert, who was the editor ofDie Aktion.[4] Richter contributed to the periodicalDie Aktion in Berlin.[5] His first exhibition was inMunich in 1916, andDie Aktion published a special edition about him. In the same year he was wounded and discharged from the army and went toZürich and metTristan Tzara,Marcel Janco,Jean Arp, andHugo Ball, who together were forming theDada movement, which he joined.
Richter believed that the artist's duty was to be politically active by opposing war and supportingrevolution. His firstabstract art works were made in 1917. In 1918,Tristan Tzara introduced Richter toViking Eggeling and the two experimented together with film. Richter was co-founder, in 1919, of the Association of Revolutionary Artists (Artistes Radicaux) at Zürich. In the same year he created his firstPrélude: an orchestration of a theme developed in eleven drawings. In 1920, he became a member of theNovember Group in Berlin and contributed to the Dutch periodicalDe Stijl.
Throughout his career, Richter claimed that his 1921 film,Rhythmus 21, was the firstabstract film ever created, but in fact it was preceded by the ItalianFuturist films byBruno Corra andArnaldo Ginna[6] (as they report in theFuturist Manifesto of Cinema),[7] as well as by fellow German artistWalter Ruttmann, who producedLichtspiel Opus 1 in 1920. Nevertheless, Richter's filmRhythmus 21 is considered an important early abstract film.
In 1933,The Nazis ransacked Richter's studio in Berlin, confiscating or destroying his work. He was stripped of his German citizenship and labelled adegenerate artist and "cultural Bolshevik". After attempting, in vain, to make ananti-Nazi film in theSoviet Union in 1931–1932, Richter travelled around Europe. He worked forPhilips in Holland and made commissioned films in Switzerland. He also gave numerous lectures about film.
About Richter'swoodcuts and drawingsMichel Seuphor wrote that Richter's black-and-whites graphic work, together with that ofHans Arp andMarcel Janco, are the most typical works of the Zürich period of Dada. From 1923 to 1926, Richter edited, together withWerner Gräff andMies van der Rohe, the periodicalG. Material zur elementaren Gestaltung. Richter wrote of his own attitude toward film:
I conceive of the film as a modern art form particularly interesting to the sense of sight. Painting has its own peculiar problems and specific sensations, and so has the film. But there are also problems in which the dividing line is obliterated, or where the two infringe upon each other. More especially, the cinema can fulfill certain promises made by the ancient arts, in the realization of which painting and film become close neighbors and work together.
Richter moved from Switzerland to the United States in 1940 and became an American citizen. Beginning in 1941 he taught at the Institute of Film Techniques at theCity College of New York before taking over as director.[8] While living inNew York City, Richter directed two feature films,Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) in collaboration withMax Ernst,Jean Cocteau,Paul Bowles,Fernand Léger,Alexander Calder,Marcel Duchamp, and others, which was partially filmed on the lawn of his summer house inSouthbury, Connecticut. In 1957, he finished a film entitledDadascope with original poems and prose spoken by their creators:Hans Arp,Marcel Duchamp,Raoul Hausmann,Richard Huelsenbeck, andKurt Schwitters. After 1958, Richter spent parts of the year inAscona andConnecticut and returned to painting.Peggy Guggenheim organized his first solo show in the United States in which his large painted scrolls, inspired by the Second World War, featured prominently.[8] In 1963, he directed the short filmFrom the Circus to the Moon about the American artistAlexander Calder.[9] In 1965, Richter was also the author of a first-hand account of the Dada movement titledDada: Art and Anti-Art[10] which also included his reflections on the emergingNeo-Dada artworks.[citation needed]
Hans Richter was married four times: in 1916 to Elisabeth (Lisa, Lies, Lieska) Steinert († 1923), in 1921 to Maria von Vanselow (divorced 1922), in 1927 to Erna Niemeyer (pseudonyms: Renate Green,Ré Soupault, René Mensch), in 1951 to Frida Ruppel (1910-78), whose two children Hans Ruppel and Ursula Lawder administered the estate.[11]
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