#hanna bekker vom rath

[germanpostwarmodern]

At a time when women were largely confined to household and parenting Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893-1983) pursued a different path: born into a wealthy, liberal family then Hanna vom Rath neither wanted to fulfill representative functions nor did she want to live the life a traditional housewife. Instead she wanted to become an artists and took painting and drawing lessons with Ottilie Roederstein, Ida Kerkovius and Adolf Hoelzl. But although her dream of a full-time artistic career never materialized she devoted her life to art: at the „Blue House“ in Wiesbaden, the family seat of her, Paul Bekker and their children, she displayed her growing collection of works by Heckel, Kirchner, Lehmbruck or Schmidt-Rotfluff. Together with Alexej von Jawlensky, whom she had befriended around 1926, Schmidt-Rotluff became Bekker's house artist and spent many summer weeks in the „Blue House“, especially after the Nazis seized power in 1933. During these years and despite the danger of being denunciated Bekker began to support „her“ artists by organizing secret exhibitions in her house as well as her apartment in Berlin: her goal was to secure the artists’ economic base by selling their „degenerate“ artworks to progressive collectors. Among the exhibited artists verifiably were Erich Heckel, Willy Baumeister, Ida Kerkovius, Ernst Wilhelm Nay and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff while visitors included sculptor Georg Kolbe, the founding director of the Brücke Museum Leopold Reidemeister as well as Ernst Gosebruch, the forcibly removed former director of the Folkwang Museum. These exhibitions, hosted under precarious conditions, nevertheless lay the foundation for Bekker’s postwar Kunstkabinett in Frankfurt/Main where she showed prewar as well as contemporary art.

Right now and up until 16 June the Brücke Museum in Berlin with „Hanna Bekker vom Rath. A Rebel for Modern Art“ devotes a comprehensive exhibition to her pioneering work and the artists she collected and represented. Alongside it the Hirmer Verlag published the present catalogue which provides a concise overview of Bekker’s many activities: besides featuring a beautiful spreads of her legendary residence and her artworks the included essays elaborate her biography and artist network, her clandestine exhibitions during wartime as well as her women artists network.

This independent and exciting life of hers is very insightfully elaborated and beautifully illustrated in the catalogue that accordingly is highly recommended!

[abwwia]

Hanna Bekker vom Rath (née vom Rath; 7 September 1893 – 8 August 1983) was a German painter, collector, patron and gallerist. Via Wikipedia

Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893, Frankfurt/ Main- 1983) began to collect art early in her life. Important works by Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Alexej von Jawlensky or Alexander Archipenko were among her first acquisitions in the 1920s. Soon her life's mission was to to make modern art more popular. She entertained lasting friendships with Jawlenksy and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Bekker vom Rath supported "her" artists during the hardships and working restrictions of German fascism by organizing, for example, secret exhibitions in her Berlin apartment, btw 1940 and 1943.

Image: Bekker smoking, around 1932, private | source for the pic and text FB https://www.facebook.com/share/p/X2mjmHgUkutyJqRc/?mibextid=K35XfP

[visual-sandwich]

Ottilie W. Roederstein (1859–1937), Hanna Bekker vom Rath im Profil, 1923

[youcannottakeitwithyou]

Hanna Bekker vom Rath (German, 1893-1983) Roter Fuchs [Red fox] (ca. 1920)

[ratatoskryggdrasil]

Hanna Bekker vom Rath, Portrait With Cat, 1949

[lilithsplace]

'Portrait with Cat', 1949 - Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893–1983)

[visual-sandwich]

Ottilie W. Roederstein (1859–1937), Hanna Bekker vom Rath im Profil, 1923