Rot-Blau
[Ger.: Red-Blue]. Swiss artists’ group formed in Basle on 31 December 1924. Its most prominent members were Paul Camenisch (1893–1970), Albert Müller (1897–1926) and Hermann Scherer. They had been loosely affiliated since 1923 as a result of their enthusiastic response to an important retrospective of the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner at the Kunsthalle in Basle in June of that year. Camenisch, Müller and Scherer visited Kirchner, who had been living in Davos-Frauenkirch since 1917,
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Rot-Blau
[Ger.: Red-Blue]. Swiss artists’ group formed in Basle on 31 December 1924. Its most prominent members were Paul Camenisch (1893–1970), Albert Müller (1897–1926) and Hermann Scherer. They had been loosely affiliated since 1923 as a result of their enthusiastic response to an important retrospective of the work of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner at the Kunsthalle in Basle in June of that year. Camenisch, Müller and Scherer visited Kirchner, who had been living in Davos-Frauenkirch since 1917, and worked under his direction. This resulted in radical changes in their respective styles, evident in such works as Müller’s sculpture Crouching Woman (1925; Basle, Staatliche Kunstsammlung), and Camenisch’s painting Portrait of a Young Boy (1931; priv. col.). The Rot-Blau group modelled itself on Die Brücke, of which Kirchner had been a founding member in 1905. As well as a new concern with the artistic treatment of the object, they aimed at recognition for artists working outside the traditional mainstream and better exhibition facilities. The members produced works in all media, including carved wooden furniture, utensils and textile designs. Others, more independent of Kirchner, were Werner Neuhaus (1897–1934) and Otto Staiger (1894–1967). In April 1925 the group came to public attention through a comprehensive exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Basle. Despite critical acclaim in Switzerland, the work was attacked by some as being too derivative of Kirchner’s. Though there was a break between Kirchner and Scherer at the end of 1925, the activities of the group fulfilled briefly Kirchner’s hopes for a progressive artistic community in Switzerland. These aims were cut short by the early deaths of Müller and Scherer.
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