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Hilla von Rebay

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Hilla Rebay
Hilla von Rebay by László Moholy-Nagy, 1924.jpg
Hilla von Rebay in 1924, by László Moholy-Nagy
Born
Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Rebay von Ehrenwiesen

(1890-05-31)31 May 1890
Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire
Died27 September 1967(1967-09-27) (aged 77)
Resting placeTeningen, Germany
NationalityGerman
Occupation(s)Artist, museum director
EmployerSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum
SuccessorJames Johnson Sweeney
Parent(s)Baron Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen
Antonie von Eicken

Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin[1] 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 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.[1] She was a key figure in advising Solomon R. Guggenheim to collect non-objective art, a collection that would later form the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection. She was also influential in selecting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the current Guggenheim museum, which is now known as a modernist icon in New York City.

Discover more about Hilla von Rebay related topics

Abstract art

Abstract art

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.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.

Solomon R. Guggenheim

Solomon R. Guggenheim

Solomon Robert Guggenheim was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator.

Modernism

Modernism

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, and social organization which reflected the newly emerging industrial world, including features such as urbanization, architecture, new technologies, and war. Artists attempted to depart from traditional forms of art, which they considered outdated or obsolete. The poet Ezra Pound's 1934 injunction to "Make it New" was the touchstone of the movement's approach.

Early life and education

Hilla von Rebay was born into a German aristocratic family in Strasbourg, Alsace–Lorraine, then part of the German Empire.[2] She was the second child of Baron Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, an officer in the Prussian Army, and his wife, Antonie von Eicken.[3][4] She showed an early aptitude for art and she studied at the Cologne Kunstgewerbeschule during the academic year 1908/09.[5] She then attended the Académie Julian in Paris from 1909 until 1910, where she received traditional training in landscape, portraiture, genre and history painting.[6] Her portraiture skills supported her before she turned to more abstract art.[7] Under the influence of the German Jugendstil painter Fritz Erler, Rebay moved to Munich in 1910 where she lived until 1911. Here, she began to develop her interest in modern art.[5]

Invited by Dr. Arnold Fortlage, Rebay participated in her first exhibition at the Cologne Kunstverein in 1912. Fortlage was the author of the foreword to the 1911 Ferdinand Hodler exhibition in Munich, which inspired Rebay greatly to pursue her interest in modern art.[5]

In March 1913, Rebay was exhibited alongside Archipenko, Brâncuși, Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Gleizes, Diego Rivera and Otto van Rees [nl] at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. This experience, however, was disheartening for Rebay, who seemed to judge her own work as inadequate.[5] In 1915, Rebay met Hans (Jean) Arp in Zurich. This meeting was extremely influential upon Rebay's artistic taste, since it was through Arp that she was introduced to the non-objective modern art works of Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc, Chagall and Rudolf Bauer.[5] At this time, Rebay was also introduced to Herwarth Walden and the avant-garde Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin.[6] In 1920, she, along with Bauer and Otto Nebel founded the artist group Der Krater.[8]

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Alsace–Lorraine

Alsace–Lorraine

Alsace–Lorraine, now called Alsace–Moselle, is a historical region located in modern day France. It was created in 1871 by the German Empire after it had seized the region from the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War with the Treaty of Frankfurt. Alsace–Lorraine reverted to French ownership in 1918 as part of the Treaty of Versailles and Germany's defeat in World War I.

German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a monarchy to a republic.

Baron

Baron

Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, but lower than a viscount or count. Often, barons hold their fief – their lands and income – directly from the monarch. Barons are less often the vassals of other nobles. In many kingdoms, they were entitled to wear a smaller form of a crown called a coronet.

Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and quality of artists who attended during the great period of effervescence in the arts in the early twentieth century. After 1968, it integrated with ESAG Penninghen.

Jugendstil

Jugendstil

Jugendstil was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of Art Nouveau. The members of the movement were reacting against the historicism and neo-classicism of the official art and architecture academies. It took its name from the art journal Jugend, founded by the German artist Georg Hirth. It was especially active in the graphic arts and interior decoration.

Fritz Erler

Fritz Erler

Fritz Erler was a German painter, graphic designer and scenic designer. Although most talented as an interior designer, he is perhaps best remembered for several propaganda posters he produced during World War I.

Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler

Ferdinand Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism which he called "parallelism".

Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Archipenko

"Alexander Archipenko". Britannica. 2022. Retrieved 2023-02-16.

Constantin Brâncuși

Constantin Brâncuși

Constantin Brâncuși was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain and others. However, other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.

Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on Cubism, Du "Cubisme", 1912. Gleizes was a founding member of the Section d'Or group of artists. He was also a member of Der Sturm, and his many theoretical writings were originally most appreciated in Germany, where especially at the Bauhaus his ideas were given thoughtful consideration. Gleizes spent four crucial years in New York, and played an important role in making America aware of modern art. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists, founder of the Ernest-Renan Association, and both a founder and participant in the Abbaye de Créteil. Gleizes exhibited regularly at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de l’Effort Moderne in Paris; he was also a founder, organizer and director of Abstraction-Création. From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s much of his energy went into writing, e.g., La Peinture et ses lois, Vers une conscience plastique: La Forme et l’histoire and Homocentrisme.

Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera, was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the mural movement in Mexican and international art.

Jean Arp

Jean Arp

Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp, better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist.

Career in the United States

In January 1927, Rebay immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City.[2] An avid art collector, she became a friend and confidante of Solomon R. Guggenheim, and helped advise his art purchases.[1] In particular, she encouraged him to purchase non-objective art by Rudolf Bauer and Kandinsky.[1]

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

These purchases later founded the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which opened in 1939 in a showroom located at 24 East 54th Street.[2] The first exhibition, entitled Art of Tomorrow, opened on June 1, 1939.[2] Rebay served as the director of the museum until 1952.[6] The next director was James Johnson Sweeney, who had previously been a curator at the Museum of Modern Art.[9]

In June 1943, Rebay wrote to the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright to commission a "museum-temple" to house the growing collection.[1] While the new museum was being designed, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting moved to a townhouse located at 1071 Fifth Avenue, the intended location of the new building, where Rebay continued to organize exhibitions.[2] When ground was finally broken in 1956, the collection was temporarily moved to a townhouse at 7 East 72nd Street.[10] The new museum opened on October 21, 1959, as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.[2]

Rebay was acknowledged to have excellent taste in modern art. She continued to paint and achieved some recognition for her abstract works. Although she was long a confidante to Solomon Guggenheim, others in the family found her personally difficult, especially his niece Peggy. After Solomon Guggenheim died in 1949, the family expelled her from the board of directors.[11]

When the museum was completed, Rebay was not invited for the opening.[12] She never set foot in the museum she helped create.[13] Embittered, Rebay retreated from public life and spent her final years at her estate in Westport, Connecticut.[14]

After her death in 1967, she was buried according to her wishes in her family grave in Teningen, Germany.[15]

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Solomon R. Guggenheim

Solomon R. Guggenheim

Solomon Robert Guggenheim was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preservation, and research of modern and contemporary art and operates several museums around the world. The first museum established by the foundation was The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, in New York City. This became The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952, and the foundation moved the collection into its first permanent museum building, in New York City, in 1959. The foundation next opened the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, in 1980. Its international network of museums expanded in 1997 to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, and it expects to open a new museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates after its construction is completed.

James Johnson Sweeney

James Johnson Sweeney

James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1986) was an American curator, and writer about modern art. Sweeney graduated from Georgetown University in 1922. From 1935 to 1946, he was curator for the Museum of Modern Art. He was the second director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, from 1952 to 1960. During his tenure, he expanded the scope of the collection to include abstract expressionist painting as well as sculpture, established the long term loans program in 1953, and the Guggenheim International Award in 1956. He was also involved in the final years of the construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed museum building during which time he had an antagonistic relationship with the architect.

Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator.

Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue

Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.

Modern art

Modern art

Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.

Peggy Guggenheim

Peggy Guggenheim

Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Guggenheim collected art in Europe and America primarily between 1938 and 1946. She exhibited this collection as she built it; in 1949, she settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.

Westport, Connecticut

Westport, Connecticut

Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is 52 miles (84 km) northeast of New York City. Westport's public school system is ranked as the top public school district in Connecticut and 17th best school district in the United States.

Teningen

Teningen

Teningen is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen, in the state Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is situated on the river Elz, 15 km north of Freiburg.

Legacy and honors

Gravestone in Teningen, Germany
Gravestone in Teningen, Germany

Following Rebay's death in 1967, part of her extensive personal collection of art was given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as the Hilla Rebay Collection, which includes works by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Albert Gleizes and Kurt Schwitters.[1]

Hilla von Rebay House in Teningen
Hilla von Rebay House in Teningen

In 2012 a Hilla von Rebay Association was founded in Teningen dedicated to the memory of Rebay and her work.[16] It operates a museum in her parents' house, which they purchased in 1919 and which she donated to Teningen after their deaths, with the request that it be used for a good purpose.[17]

  • 2004, the German documentary filmmaker Sigrid Faltin made the film The Guggenheim and the Baroness: The Story of Hilla Rebay.[18]
  • In 2005, a companion book Die Baroness und das Guggenheim Hilla von Rebay – Eine Deutsche Künstlerin in New York was published.[19]
  • In 2005, nearly forty years after her death, the Guggenheim Museum honored Rebay with a special exhibition dedicated to her role in the foundation and her collection, entitled Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim (May 20 – August 10, 2005). It opened in New York and traveled to Europe.[20]
  • The Hilla von Rebay Foundation was established in her name at the Guggenheim Museum to promote non-objective art.[21]
  • The Hilla Rebay International Fellowship was founded in 2001 to offer a current graduate student the opportunity to undertake a paid rotating position at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.[22]
  • In 2014, Rebay was depicted in Bauer, a play about the life and art of Rudolf Bauer and his relationship with Rebay. The play had its world premiere at San Francisco Playhouse.[23]
  • In 2017, a selection of Rebay's work was on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim exhibition.[24][25]

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Teningen

Teningen

Teningen is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen, in the state Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is situated on the river Elz, 15 km north of Freiburg.

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany.

Bauer (play)

Bauer (play)

Bauer is a play by Lauren Gunderson that had its world premiere in March 2014 at the San Francisco Playhouse which also commissioned it. Based on the life of the German painter Rudolf Bauer, it tells the story of how, after having arrived to USA in the beginning of World War II, he was tricked by the fellow German artist and love of his life, Hilla von Rebay, into signing a contract that gave Solomon R. Guggenheim the legal rights to all of his paintings and any future works he created. The play triggered a retrospective of Bauer's work at the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco.

Rudolf Bauer (artist)

Rudolf Bauer (artist)

Alexander Georg Rudolf Bauer was a German-born painter who was involved in the avant-garde group Der Sturm in Berlin, and whose work would become central to the non-objective art collection of Solomon R. Guggenheim.

San Francisco Playhouse

San Francisco Playhouse

San Francisco Playhouse is a non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, founded in 2003 by Bill English and Susi Damilano. The theater stages nine plays yearly, including Broadway plays, musicals, and world and regional premieres.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.

Source: "Hilla von Rebay", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 19th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilla_von_Rebay.

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Notes
  1. ^ Regarding personal names: Freiin is a title, translated as Baroness, not a first or middle name. The title is for the unmarried daughters of a Freiherr.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "The Hilla Rebay Collection" Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim" Archived 2017-04-14 at the Wayback Machine. Deutsche Guggenheim. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  3. ^ Barbara Sicherman; Carol Hurd Green (1980). Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Harvard University Press. p. 571. ISBN 978-0-674-62733-8. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  4. ^ Hall, Lee (October 1984). "The Passions of Hilla Rebay". The New Criterion. newcriterion.com. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d e Lukach, Joan (1983). Hilla Rebay: In Search of the Spirit in Art. New York: G. Braziller. ISBN 0807610674. OCLC 9828422.
  6. ^ a b c "Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archive". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  7. ^ "Hilla Rebay". Retrieved 14 August 2022.
  8. ^ "Hilla Rebay". The Art Story. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  9. ^ Glueck, Grace (April 15, 1986). "James Johnson Sweeney Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  10. ^ "Guggenheim Architecture Timeline". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. guggenheim.org. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  11. ^ "The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum". The Art Story Foundation. theartstory.org. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  12. ^ Hansen, Eric T. (May 2005). "The Forgotten Baroness". The Atlantic Times. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  13. ^ Knöfel, Ulrike (March 21, 2005). "The German Artist Who Inspired the Museum Gets Her Due in New Show". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
  14. ^ "The Dream of Non-Objectivity" Archived 2012-11-27 at the Wayback Machine. DB Artmag. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  15. ^ Biography, p. 3 Archived 2014-01-29 at archive.today at "The Baroness". Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  16. ^ "Gründung des Fördervereins" [Founding of the Association] (in German). Förderverein Hilla von Rebay. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
  17. ^ "Geschichte des Hauses" [History of the House] (in German). Retrieved 1 September 2017.
  18. ^ The Rebay Project Archived 2009-06-17 at the Wayback Machine at "The Baroness"
  19. ^ Die Baroness und das Guggenheim Hilla von Rebay – Eine Deutsche Künstlerin in New York Archived 2007-06-26 at the Wayback Machine at "The Baroness"
  20. ^ "Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim" Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, press release May 2005, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  21. ^ "The Hilla Rebay Foundation Grant" Archived 2014-02-13 at the Wayback Machine, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, retrieved 29 January 2014.
  22. ^ "Hilla Rebay International Fellowship" Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, retrieved 29 January 2014.
  23. ^ ""Lauren Gunderson's new play Bauer tackles art and history"". Archived from the original on 2014-03-22. Retrieved 2014-03-24.
  24. ^ Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim, Guggenheim Museum
  25. ^ D'arcy, David (February 17, 2017). "Cosmic collectors: how the Guggenheim family came into its art". Archived from the original on February 24, 2017. Retrieved February 24, 2017.
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