| Hans Richter |
| Born |
6 April 1888
Berlin, German Empire |
| Died |
1 February 1976 (aged 87)
Minusio, Switzerland |
| Occupation |
Painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter, producer |
| Years active |
1914–1961 |
Hans Richter (April 6, 1888 – February 1, 1976) was a German painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer.
[1] He was born in
Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in
Minusio, near
Locarno,
Switzerland.
Germany[edit]
Richter’s first contacts with
modern art were in 1912 through the “
Blaue Reiter” and in 1913 through the “
Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (
de)” gallery “
Der Sturm“, in Berlin. In 1914 he was influenced by
cubism. He contributed to the periodical
Die Aktion in Berlin.
[2] His first exhibition was in
Munich in 1916, and
Die Aktion published as a special edition about him. In the same year he was wounded and discharged from the army and went to
Zürich and joined the
Dada movement.
Richter believed that the artist’s duty was to be actively political, opposing war and supporting the revolution. His first abstract works were made in 1917. In 1918, he befriended
Viking 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 first
Prélude (an orchestration of a theme developed in eleven drawings). In 1920 he was a member of the November group in Berlin and contributed to the Dutch periodical
De Stijl.
Throughout his career, he claimed that his 1921 film,
Rhythmus 21, was the first
abstract film ever created. This claim is not true: he was preceded by the Italian
Futurists Bruno Corra and
Arnaldo Ginna between 1911 and 1912
[3] (as they report in the
Futurist Manifesto of Cinema),
[4] as well as by fellow German artist
Walter Ruttmann who produced
Lichtspiel Opus 1 in 1920. Nevertheless, Richter’s film
Rhythmus 21 is considered an important early abstract film.
About Richter’s woodcuts and drawings
Michel Seuphor wrote: “Richter’s black-and-whites together with those of Arp and Janco, are the most typical works of the Zürich period of Dada.” From 1923 to 1926, Richter edited, together with
Werner Gräff and
Mies van der Rohe, the periodical
G. 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. He taught in the Institute of Film Techniques at the
City College of New York.
[5]While living in
New York, Richter directed two feature films,
Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and
8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) in collaboration with
Max Ernst,
Jean Cocteau,
Paul Bowles,
Fernand Léger,
Alexander Calder,
Marcel Duchamp, and others, which was partially filmed on the lawn of his summer house in
Southbury, Connecticut.
Richter was also the author of a first-hand account of the Dada movement titled
Dada: Art and Anti-Art[6] which also included his reflections on the emerging
Neo-Dada artworks.