artist/ RICHTER
ALLEMAND
Hans Richter was a German-born painter, visual artist and filmmaker who became an American citizen in 1947.
After studying architecture, he attended the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in 1908 and the Weimar Academy in 1909. In his early years, Hans Richter painted in an expressionist vein and cubism only briefly. In 1912, he came into contact with the “Sturm” circle – an avant-garde weekly devoted to literary criticism and the fine arts. From 1914 onwards, he contributed to “Die Aktion”, a weekly for politics and free literature.
Zurich, 1917, marked a turning point: he joined the first Dadaist group, and met Victor Eggeling (Swedish artist and film director), introduced by Tristan Tzara; Eggeling was to have a strong influence on his cinematographic work.
In 1918, Hans Richter began painting in a quasi-abstract style, focusing on the decomposition of movement and schematization. This was the premise of his cinematographic work, which he took up in the wake of Eggeling. Richter created “roller pictures” and eventually brought them to life.On his return to Berlin in the early 20s, he contributed to De Stijl – a monthly Dutch magazine – created at the instigation of Théo Van Doesburg, with the active participation of Piet Mondrian. Richter is Eggeling’s assistant, collaborating with him on the first abstract films*.A member of the “Novembergruppe”, he edits the magazine G (Gestaltung) with Mies van der Rohe.
The advent of Nazism forces him to seek refuge in the USSR, and under the rule of this other totalitarianism in the USA. Hans Richter enjoyed a second career behind the camera. Director of the Technical Film Institute at the City College of New York, he also began a fifteen-year career as a teacher. Without abandoning painting, Hans Richter continued his cinematographic work during these years: “Dreals that money can buy”, “30 années de films expérimentaux”, “8 X 8”, “Chesscetera”, “Dadascope”, exhibiting in New York, Chicago, Basel, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Paris.From 1960 onwards, he returned exclusively to painting and to geometric abstraction with stripped-down graphics, either flat – Vibra, Black Dialogue, Labyrinth … – or in constructed relief:
Pro contrat, Dymo, Cohésion. His work is linked by a common thread: the search for rhythm and movement.
A great witness to his time, Hans Richter has contributed through his work, exhibitions, publications and teaching to the history of the modern movement.
* “The paternity of geometrical abstract film is indisputably Eggeling’s, while Richter’s diffusion is responsible for its knowledge” in dictionnaire de l’Art Moderne et Contemporain, which cites O’Konor’s research following the publication of his book.
