Karli Sohn-Rethel Fischer mit Boot um 1935

Carl Ernst "Karli" Sohn-Rethel (1882–1966) German

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

painter of the

Düsseldorf school of painting Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

art movement. He traveled often and was active in Düsseldorf, Munich, Rome,

Positano Positano ( ; in Neapolitan language, Neapolitan: () is a village and ''comune'' on the Amalfi Coast (Province of Salerno), in Campania, Italy, mainly in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast. History The first evidence of a settle ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, among other places. Sohn-Rethel was a member of the art groups, Sonderbund group and Young Rhineland.

Biography

Early life

Sohn-Rethel was born 8 May 1882, as the third child of the portrait painter

Karl Rudolf Sohn Karl Friedrich Rudolf Sohn (21 July 1845, Düsseldorf – 29 August 1908, Düsseldorf) was a German portrait painter in the Academicism, Academic style. Biography His father was the landscape painter, Karl Ferdinand Sohn. After graduating from ...

and his wife, the artist

Else Sohn-Rethel Elisabeth "Else" Johanna Martha Maria Sohn-Rethel (14 March 1853 – 22 January 1933) was a German painter and singer, active in the mid and late 19th-century. Biography Elisabeth Johanna Martha Maria Rethel was born 14 March 1853 in Rome, P ...

. His mother was the daughter of the painter

Alfred Rethel Alfred Rethel (May 15, 1816December 1, 1859) was a German history painter. Early life and education Rethel was born in Aachen in 1816. He showed an interest in art in his early life, and at the age of thirteen he executed a drawing which procured ...

. His father was the son of

Karl Ferdinand Sohn Karl Ferdinand Sohn (10 December 1805 in Berlin – 25 November 1867 in Cologne) was a German painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting. Biography He was born in Berlin and started his studies at the age of eighteen under Friedrich Wilhelm ...

. His older brothers were the painters

Alfred Sohn-Rethel Alfred Sohn-Rethel (; 4 January 1899 – 6 April 1990) was a French-born German Marxian economist and philosopher especially interested in epistemology. His main intellectual achievement was the publication of ''Intellectual and Manual Labour: A ...

, the father of the philosopher

, and

Otto Sohn-Rethel Otto Wilhelm Sohn-Rethel (1877–1949) German lepidopterist and a painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting art movement. Sohn-Rethel was a member of the art groups, Sonderbund group and Young Rhineland. The prominent theme of his art was y ...

. His younger sister Mira was married to the painter Werner Heuser. He studied at

Kunstakademie Düsseldorf The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Blinky Palermo, Ma ...

(Düsseldorf Art Academy) where he graduated in 1903, and that same year in spring he continued his studies at

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German language, German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institutio ...

. At Dresden he studied under Carl Bantzer, and Gotthardt Kuehl.

Career and later life

After he completed his training, he traveled to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

to meet up with his brother Otto, his brother-in-law Werner Heuser, and artists

Karl Hofer Karl Christian Ludwig Hofer or ''Carl Hofer'' (11 October 1878 – 3 April 1955) was a German expressionist painter. He was director of the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. One of the most prominent painters of expressionism, he never was a me ...

, Hermann Haller and

Maurice Sterne Maurice Sterne (, 1877 or 1878 – July 23, 1957) was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923. Biography Sterne was born in 1877 or ...

. Sohn-Rethel was in Rome from 1906 until 1912. In 1911, Karli Sohn-Rethel joined the '' Sonderbund group'' with other Düsseldorf painters. These painters included Julius Bretz, Max Clarenbach, August Deusser, Walter Ophey, Wilhelm Schmurr, and his brothers

and

. From this experience, he joined

Alfred Flechtheim Alfred Flechtheim (1 April 1878 – 9 March 1937) was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis. Early years Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a ...

's gallery. From October 1912 to May 1914, Sohn-Rethel traveled and painted with his friend Maurice Sterne, they visited

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

;

Varanasi Varanasi (, also Benares, Banaras ) or Kashi, is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world.* * * * The city has a syncretic tradition of I ...

, India;

Mandalay Mandalay is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. It is located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631 km (392 mi) north of Yangon. In 2014, the city had a population of 1,225,553. Mandalay was founded in 1857 by Ki ...

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

;

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, Indonesia; and Bali. He returned to Europe and it was the beginning of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and he stayed in Munich. In 1919 he joined the art Young Rhineland art group. He took part in the opening of the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim that same year, in 1919. After the end of World War I, he moved in 1920–1921 to

, Italy and socialized with

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

Siegfried Kracauer Siegfried Kracauer (; ; February 8, 1889 – November 26, 1966) was a German writer, journalist, sociologist, cultural critic, and film theorist. He has sometimes been associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He is notable for ...

Ernst Bloch Ernst Simon Bloch (; ; July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977; pseudonyms: Karl Jahraus, Jakob Knerz) was a German Marxist philosopher. Bloch was influenced by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, as well as by apocalyptic and religious thinker ...

, and Alfred Kantorowicz. Sohn-Rethel emigrated to Italy during the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

of Germany, around 1933. He stayed with his painter friend Kurt Craemer in Positano, Italy, a city he had visited earlier in 1920.

Death and legacy

In 1959, Sohn-Rethel moved back to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he died on 7 April 1966. He is buried at Nordfriedhof Düsseldorf cemetery. WWII would destroy much of his works although some of his works survived. These surviving paintings are held at the Suermondt-Ludwig and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. His work is in various public museum collections including Provincial Art Gallery of

Salerno Salerno (, ; ; ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Campania, southwestern Italy, and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after Naples. It is located ...

, among others.

Work

Sohn-Rethel's early works were inspired by the works of artists Cezanne and

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

. Later in life he created his own expressionist style. His style of painting was influenced by the abstract human figure in his landscape studies. He often rendered people's faces as abstract ovals. During his time living in

, he often depicted fishermen on the beach and groups of locals in his paintings.Iris Marzik: ''Eine Einführung in das Leben und Werk von Karli Sohn-Rethel''. In: Karli Sohn-Rethel 1882–1966. Gemälde, Gouachen, Zeichnungen. Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg 1988, S. 22

References

External links

Artist: Carl Ernst Sohn-Rethel
in European Paintings and Drawings 1905-1915, Database of Modern Exhibitions (DoME), Institute for Art History at

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sohn-Rethel, Karli 1882 births 1966 deaths German male painters Painters from Düsseldorf Kunstakademie Düsseldorf alumni Dresden Academy of Fine Arts Düsseldorf school of painting