Hans Rilke

Hans Rilke, a painter, graphic artist and art educator from Rheydt, lived in Düsseldorf from 1910. His training included a seminar for the training of drawing teachers and a school of applied arts. In 1919, after completing his studies, he joined the political “Aktivistenbund”.

The entry notes socially critical content and Expressionist, abstract-Cubist and fantastic tendencies in the most accomplished works of this period. It relates these tendencies in particular to an encounter with the works of George Grosz and Gert Wollheim, an interpretation it presents as a reading of his work. According to the same entry, a large part of his work is said to have been destroyed in the bombings of the Second World War. The expressive sculpture he is also said to have experimented with is now reported as lost.

The 1924 watercolour Aus dem Urwald (Afrikanische Figuren) combines watercolour, water-based paints, ink and pencil on drawing paper; it measures 50.2 × 46.2 cm. The sheet bears the brush-applied signature “Hans Rilke” near the lower right of centre, and the date 1924 on the left. The verso features drawn mathematical and geometric constructions. The published provenance lists a private collection in West Germany until 1997, the Remmert und Barth gallery in Düsseldorf, and subsequently a private collection in North Rhine-Westphalia. The work is recorded as having been exhibited in Düsseldorf in 1997, in Überblick 1997, as no. 131, with a colour reproduction. An essay on the artist by Anna Steins, “Hans Rilke – Werk ohne Wirkung?”, appears in the catalogue for the exhibition Hans Rilke at the Städtisches Museum Schloß Rheydt in Mönchengladbach in 1996.

Works recorded at auction

Lempertz · Lot 327

Aus dem Urwald (Afrikanische Figuren)

Aquarell- und Wasserfarben

Auction date : 2018-06-01

Published result : 4340 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 4000

View the lot at the auction house ↗