The artist as fire-eater: Willibald Wolf Rudinoff

After my last post about the resourceful Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who took his carefully-prepared etching plates with him on a canoeing trip, I thought I should follow up with the the wonderfully-named Willibald Wolf Rudinoff, a circus performer and nightclub singer who carted his self--designed etching press with him across the world. Rudinoff (sometimes listed as Willi, Willy, or Wilhelm Rudinoff and also under the surname Morgenstern, or Morgenstern-Rudinoff) was born in Angermünde, Germany on 4 August 1866. Rudinoff came from an Eastern European Jewish family (either Polish or Russian, the sources differ, but from somewhere in the Pale of Settlement); his father was a cantor, who was fleeing persecution. Rudinoff's education was spread across Russia, Germany, and France, and as an adult he cultivated a "citizen of the world" mentality. Willibald Wolf Rudinoff also worked as Willy Morgenstern. Apparently his passport was in the name Morgenstern, and this seems to have been his real name. Six foot two, with a commanding face and physique, he assumed the name Rudinoff as a stage name, travelling across Europe as a circus performer. In this capacity Rudinoff is recorded as a fire-eater, creator of shadow silhouettes, and also as a singer with a fine tenor voice, which he also used to imitate the cries of animals.

Willibald Wolf Rudinoff, An der Elbe

Etching, 1901

In 1891 Rudinoff became close friends with the dramatist Frank Wedekind, who was attracted by Rudinoff's mastery of pantomime. Sometime around 1900 Rudinoff made the switch from circus artist to fine artist. Rudinoff is known to have studied art for some months at the Munich Academy, and also at the Académie Julian in Paris. However, he continued performing as a singer in cabarets and nightclubs across the world. In June 1903, for instance, he was performing at the Tivoli in Sydney, and a reporter from the Sydney Mail recorded that, "He has become one of the most sought-after and highest salaried attractions on the variety stage, and his engagements all over the world have made the world his sketching ground." As a consequence, Rudinoff was active as an artist across Western and Northern Europe. The Sydney Mail reporter documents the contents of his lodgings: "From the traditional artistic litter his etching press - made after his own design - is easily identifiable. This in itself constitutes a nice little item for weekly carriage, weighing as it does four hundredweight, and when you add to this stacks of canvases, reams of water-colour paper, iron-bound chests of oils, brushes, crayons, pastes, acids, and baths for etching, violin, guitar, copper plates, and a collection of etchings that would grace the walls of any picture gallery, you may form some slight idea of Rudinoff's enthusiasm."

Willibald Wolf Rudinoff, Dot Hardy (Porträtstudie)

Etching, 1902

My first etching by Rudinoff is a post-Impressionist boating scene on the river Elbe in Germany, My second was created in Sheffield, and seems to depict a fellow music-hall or cabaret artist, Dot Hardy. Sadly, Google searches for Dot or Dorothy Hardy have not yielded any information about this lively-looking young woman. Willibald Wolf Rudinoff is remembered primarily as an etcher, but was also a master watercolorist. Rudinoff produced scenes of music halls and circuses, landscapes, coastal scenes, and figure studies in an artistic career that deserves more attention than it has received. In 1902 he showed 70 works at the Grafton Galleries, London; about the same time, the Munich National Gallery acquired a complete set of his etchings to date for their print room. The last dated piece of his art that I have found is from 1929. His date of death is not known.

A plein-air etcher: Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Philip Gilbert Hamerton was born in the hamlet of Laneside near Oldham, Lancashire, in 1834. Initially intending to be a painter, he turned to art criticism. His works include Etching and Etchers, Contemporary French Painters, and Painting in France after the Decline of Classicism. In 1870 Hamerton founded the magazine The Portfolio, which he edited until his death in 1894. While he is still remembered as the encourager and promoter of other etchers, the fact that Philip Gilbert Hamerton was himself an etcher of real accomplishment has been almost forgotten. The 37 etchings of scenes on the river Arroux that he selected for his book The Unknown River in 1871 have the particular Impressionistic charm of etchings made in the open air, during the course of a canoeing holiday. Hamerton meticulously prepared 60 etching plates for this trip, fixing them to drawing boards which were then placed in a series of grooved boxes that were then sent ahead to inns along the river, so that Hamerton's stock of prepared plates was constantly replenished.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Pre Charmoy

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Voudenay-le-Château

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Near Voudenay

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Cathedral and Bishop's Palace, Autun

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Genetoie

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Near Ornay

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Recuange I

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Gueugnon

Etching, 1871

Hamerton was influenced in his artistic thinking by the French plein-air artists of the Barbizon School, the forerunners of Impressionism; like the Impressionists, he was perfectly at ease adding industrial chimneys to a rural view, as in the etching of Gueugnon. At the end of The Unknown River, he writes, "No art is more agreeable for direct work from nature than etching is. The rapidity of it, and its freedom, are greatly in its favour, and so is its remarkable independence of damp and wet. Many of the plates in this series were immersed in the river, after being etched, when the artist was upset; others were executed in bad weather, with the rain literally pouring over the copper in a manner which would have rendered any other kind of drawing quite impossible." Some of Hamerton's amusing self-portraits make the most of the various trials and tribulations suffered in the course of his "etcher's voyage of self-discovery."

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Danger Ahead

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, A Difficult Place

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Crossing a Field

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Seeking Shelter

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, A Night in the Canoe

Etching, 1871

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Portrait of Tom

Etching, 1871

Hamerton's 1876 work The Sylvan Year has etchings by various artists, including Auguste André Lançon, Léopold Massard, and Edmond Hédouin, alongside plates by Hamerton himself. My copy of this handsome work appears to have been a presentation gift from Queen Victoria, something I only noticed when preparing this post.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Ancient Chestnuts

Etching, 1876

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Rivulet in a Forest

Etching, 1876

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Cottages in a Valley

Etching, 1876

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, Shepherd and Sheep

Etching, 1876

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, In a Wood at Moonrise

Etching, 1876

It is no doubt just that Philip Gilbert Hamerton, like his great contemporary John Ruskin, is remembered primarily as a critic rather than as an artist - but I would not like his delicate and unpretentious art to be completely forgotten. Having lived most of his adult life in France (his wife was French), Philip Gilbert Hamerton died in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1894.

A Jugendstil Masterpiece: Sehnsucht by Gotz Dohler

In the early years of the twentieth century, many German artists were busy constructing the vocabulary of Expressionism. But some remained faithful to the Symbolist/Art Nouveau aesthetic of the end of the previous century, known as Jugendstil. I think the etching in this post, published in 1906 by the Leipzig art revue Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, is one of the masterpieces of late Jugendstil. It's one of the most perfect summations of Jugendstil I have seen - intricate, brooding, romantic, with a magical transformation between human and natural forms. Please click on the image to get a larger version with more detail.

C. Götz Döhler, Sehnsucht (Longing)

Etching with aquatint, 1906

What is perhaps most surprising about this work is that the artist who created it, Götz Dohler, remains almost completely unknown. I have managed to discover a first initial, C., and a year of birth, 1867, and that's it. He's not listed in Bénézit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. Google comes up with almost nothing. I can't find any record of work by Döhler being sold or offered for sale. Via Libri doesn't come up with any books or journals illustrated by him. It's as if he just created this one perfect work and then vanished into thin air. And yet no one acquires the technical skill shown in Sehnsucht without a lot of practice. I can imagine that if Götz Döhler remained doggedly faithful to Judgendstil he would have faded from view as that style became outmoded, and equally that his lush romantic sensibility would have been out-of-tune with the times once the catastrophe of the First World War go under way. But it still seems mysterious that so little can be ascertained about an artist of such stature. Do any of my readers know anything more about him?

Update 15 September 2013:
I correct myself: C. Götz Döhler is listed in Bénézit, with the variant spelling Doehler. He was born in Glachau on the 31st of March 1867. He studied in Leipzig, and seems to have lived and worked there. Although he is described as a painter and printmaker, his main work seems to have been designing and executing large decorative paintings.

A Lamplit Dreamscape: Karl Hofer

Karl Hofer, Nächtliche Überfahrt (Night journey)

Etching with aquatint, 1899

When I first saw this haunting etching with aquatint, I wasn't sure who the artist was. Paul Klee? Marc Chagall? Both seemed likely possibilities. But in fact it's a very early work, predating both Klee and Chagall, by the German Expressionist Karl Hofer. Born in 1878 in Karlsruhe, Karl Christian Ludwig Hofer (sometimes listed as Carl Hofer) studied at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Art from 1896-1900; this stiking etching was made while he was still a student.

Karl Hofer, Tänzerin

Lithograph, 1921

Although a prominent member of the Expressionist movement, Karl Hofer was never associated with one particular group. In common with most Expressionists, Karl Hofer's art was condemned as degenerate by the Nazis; one hundred and fifty of his canvases were destroyed in his studio. After the war, Karl Hofer was appointed Director of the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Berlin. He died in Berlin in 1955. The exhibition Eros, dreams and death. Between Symbolism and Expressionism: The early work of graphic Karl Hofer, Emil Rudolf Weiss and Wilhelm Laage was held at the Städtischen Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen in 2012; I believe these two examples of Karl Hofer's art show how true that exhibition title was for him.

Not Monet, Monnet - Movimento Arte Concreta

Gianni Monnet seems to have fallen through the cracks of art history, which is sad in all sorts of ways. Of all the artists of MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta, which lasted from 1948 to 1958, Gianni Monnet seems to have been the joker in the pack. His original works contributed to Documenti d'arte d'oggi, the movement's four-volume journal, are almost uncategorisable, so intent was Monnet on sticking on various bits of material, ranging from furry purple felt to sandpaper to corrugated card. I've already posted here about an instance in which a lithograph had holes hand-punched through it, a piece of scrumpled newspaper collaged to it, and sandpaper and corrugated card fixed to the facing page in order to make visible impressions on the surface of the litho. Surface and the rupturing of the surface; texture and the effects of texture on the untextured surface; these seem to have been his obsessions.

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1955

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1955

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1956

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, 1956

Gianni Monnet

Untitled lithograph, with hand-punched holes, collaged newspaper,

and deliberate surface impressions from facing page, 1956-57

Gianni Monnet

Lithograph for the cover of Documenti d'arte d'oggi, 1958

with die-cut hole, collaged corrugated card and collaged furry purple felt

Gianni Monnet was born in Turin in 1912. He trained as an architect, before moving to Milan in 1946 to become an artist. Two years later he co-founded the influential abstract art group MAC, Movimente Arte Concreta, alongside Gillo Dorfles, Atanasio Soldati, and Bruno Munari. Inspired by Theo van Doesburg and the Dutch De Stijl movement, and also by the Swiss painter Max Bill, MAC espoused a severe aesthetic in which only the "concrete" elements of form and colour were the artist's only true concern. The premature death of Gianni Monnet in 1958 led to the disbanding of MAC in May of that year. Without this elusive and mercurial figure, the others seem not to have had the heart to carry on.

An Italian Abstract Expressionist: Enrico Bordoni - Movimento Arte Concreta

Enrico Bordoni was born in Altare in 1904.

Enrico Bordoni (1904-1969)

A professor at the Accademia Brera in Milan, Enrico Bordoni was a member of the abstract art group MAC, Movimento Arte Concreta, which flourished from 1948-1958.

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1951

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled woodcut, 1955

Bordoni was one of the most prolific contributors to MAC's publication Documenti d'arte d'oggi. His original silkscreens, woodcuts and lithographs show a powerful and highly-alert sense of rhythm, and their gestural authority and boldly vibrant use of colour link this non-figurative Italian "concrete art" movement with the contemporary Abstract Expressionism of the USA.

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, 1949

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1950

Enrico Bordoni

Untitled lithograph, c. 1956

Enrico Bordoni died in 1969.

The master of spatialism in the Movimento Arte Concreta - Lucio Fontana

Lucio Fontana was born in Argentina in 1899. Now renowned as the founder of the Spazialismo movement (Spatialism), he was a member of Abstraction-Création in the 1930s, and in the 1950s he was also closely involved in the Italian abstract movement MAC, the Movimento Arte Concreta.

Lucio Fontana, Untitled lithograph, 1955

Lucio Fontana, Untitled lithograph, 1955

The two Fontana lithographs above both date from 1955, and are printed on very thin paper, the first on green, the second on orange. They have both been randomly punctured with many small holes, in accordance with Fontana's practice at this period, and his ongoing concern with disrupting the picture plane. His paintings of this date, which are also punctured with holes rather than slashed with cuts (for which he is perhaps more famous), were called Buchi, Holes.

Lucio Fontana

Untitled lithograph, 1958

Apparently Fontana came to find MAC's theoretical rejection of figuration an arid dead-end, leading too many of its artists to take refuge in geometry. But his 1958 lithograph above is anything but arid or geometric. Instead it is lyrical and dreamlike, and makes the most of its unusual support, a highly fibrous buff-coloured paper. One of Italy's most influential 20th-century artists, Lucio Fontana died in 1968.