Rupprecht Geiger

Rupprecht Geiger studied architecture at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich from 1926 to 1929. This was followed by an apprenticeship as a bricklayer of two years from 1930, after which he studied at the Munich State Building School until 1935. From 1936 to 1940 he worked as an architect in various architectural offices. As a painter Geiger was self-taught. Stationed in Poland and Russia during the Second World War, Rupprecht Geiger worked as a war painter in the Ukraine and Greece. After the end of the war, the artist returned to Munich. There, in 1949, Geiger was the initiator and co-founder of the group of non-objective artists, which shortly afterwards gave itself the name ZEN 49. Together with the artists Willi Baumeister, Rolf Cavael, Gerhard Fietz, Willy Hempel, Brigitte Matschinsky-Denninghoff and Fritz Winter, he endeavoured to create a new art in post-war Germany. In the 1950s, Rupprecht Geiger found the central theme of his work, colour. Simple geometric forms – square, rectangle, circle and oval – were to allow the power of colour itself to emerge.
From 1965 to 1976 Geiger held a professorship for painting at the State Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. From 1959 to 1979 he was involved in the documenta in Kassel.
On the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, numerous exhibitions and retrospectives took place, among others at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich, Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin and the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen. Geiger died on 6 December 2009 in Munich as one of the most important abstract artists of post-war history.