Lot 327 Dα

This exceptional watercolour offered here combines Rilke's masterly drawing technique with the differentiated arrangement of coloured volumes in a density typical of his work. The primitivist motif not only refers to the reception of African art at that time, but may reflectively refer to Rilke's own attempts at expressive sculpture, which are lost today.
The painter and graphic artist Hans Rilke from Rheydt, whose early work was largely destroyed during the bombing of the Second World War, had lived in Düsseldorf since 1910 and not only joined the political "Aktivistenbund" there in 1919 after attending a seminar for art teachers and the arts and crafts school, he was also accepted into the circles around Johanna Ey and the artists of the "Junges Rheinland" in the early twenties. The style of his best works from this period was influenced by socially critical topics, by expressionist, abstract-cubist and fantastic tendencies, which bear witness to his encounter i.a. with the work of George Grosz and Gert Wollheim.