Christian Rohlfs

Christian Rohlfs (November 22, 1849 - January 8, 1938) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the important representatives of German expressionism.

Early life and education

File:Christian Rohlfs - Abstraction (the Blue Mountain) - Google Art Project.jpg

Abstraction (the Blue Mountain) (1912)

He was born in Groß Niendorf, Kreis Segeberg in Prussia. He took up painting as a teenager while convalescing from an infection<ref name=met/> that was eventually to lead to the amputation of a leg in 1874.<ref name=germany>Template:Cite book</ref> He began his formal artistic education in Berlin,<ref name=germany/> before transferring, in 1870, to the Weimar Academy.<ref name=met/>

Professional career

In 1901 Rohlfs left Weimar for Hagen, where through the architect Henri van der Velde got to know the art collector Karl Ernst Osthaus who offered him a studio in an estate which would become the Museum Folkwang.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> Rohlfs was the first artist to begin to work there.<ref name=":1" /> Meetings with Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde and the experience of seeing the works of Vincent van Gogh inspired him to move towards the expressionist style, in which he would work for the rest of his career.<ref name="met">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1908, at the age of 60, he made his first prints after seeing an exhibition of works by the expressionist group Die Brücke. He went on to make 185 in total, almost all woodcuts or linocuts.<ref name="met" /> He lived in Munich and the Tyrol in 1910–12, before returning to Hagen.Template:Citation needed. The outbreak of World War I worried Rohlfs such, that for some time he felt unable to paint.<ref name=":1" /> In rare instances he experimented with heavily hand-coloring his prints, onto the verge of painting and sometimes well after they were made, as in his 1919 recoloring of the prior year's Der Gefangene.<ref>Cole, William. "Christian Rohlfs: Der Gefangene," Art in Print, Vol. 4 No. 1 (May–June 2014).</ref>

In May 1922 he attended the International Congress of Progressive Artists and signed the "Founding Proclamation of the Union of Progressive International Artists".<ref name="Review">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1937 the Nazis expelled him from the Prussian Academy of Arts, condemned his work as degenerate, and removed his works from public collections.<ref name="met" /> Seventeen of his paintings were exhibited in the Degenerate Art Exhibition in 1937.<ref name=":1" /> He died in Hagen, Westfalia, on 8 January 1938.<ref name=":1" />

Style and technique

Throughout his career he working through a variety of academic, naturalist, impressionist, and Post-Impressionist styles.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He has often been viewed as one of the first Expressionists.<ref name=":1" />

Reception

After his death, the German Nazi authorities prohibited the sale of his paintings.<ref name=":1" /> Commemorative exhibitions were organized by the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Berner Kunsthalle.<ref name=":1" />

Recognition

• In 1929 the town of Hagen opened a Christian Rohlfs Museum.<ref name="germany" />
• Honorary citizen of Hagen<ref name=":1" />
• Honorary Doctorate by University of Kiel<ref name=":1" />
• Honorary Doctorate by University of Aachen<ref name=":1" />

Works

• Christian Rohlfs - Hügelige Landschaft im Spätherbst.jpg

  Hilly landscape in late autumn, 1900

• 1912 Rohlfs Stiftskirche St. Patrokli in Soest anagoria.JPG

  Collegiate Church of St. Patroclus in Soest, 1912, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

• 1912 Rohlfs Visionaere Landschaft anagoria.JPG

  Landscape vision, 1912, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

• 1914 Rohlfs Versuchung Christi anagoria.JPG

  The temptation of Christ, 1914, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

• Rohlfs - Sternbrücke in Weimar.jpeg

  Sternbrücke in Weimar., (ca. 1917)

External links

• Biography & Works by Christian Rohlfs Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf, Germany
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