Rudolf Bauer

<p>&lt;p&gt;Rudolf Bauer was born in 1889 in Lindenwald, Germany. In 1905 he studied briefly at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, but soon abandoned academic art instruction to forge his path independently. Over the next five years, Bauer experimented with Impressionism and satirical caricatures mocking elitism and industrial progress. By 1911 he had moved on to Cubism, creating such works as Duo (1911), an image of musicians broken down into the hard-edged planes of cubist renderings. Following his brief engagement with Expressionism, Bauer had adopted the nonobjective style that would occupy his art, writing, advocacy, and collecting practices for the rest of his life. In the late 1910s, Bauer participated at the nexus of avant-garde art in Berlin, lecturing at universities, contributing to magazines like Der Sturm, and exhibiting at Glaspalast and the Sturm Gallery. He had solo exhibitions at the latter in 1917, 1918, and 1920. By the Fall of 1916, he had met Hilla Rebay, with whom he began a long and complex relationship. During this time, he also wrote pivotal essays devoted to abstract art, such as Cosmic Movement (1918) and Manifesto of Painting (1921). Bauer also co-founded short-lived artistic movements like Novembergruppe (1918), and Die Krater (1920). In 1927 Bauer exhibited at the Royal Palace in Berlin. In the late 1920s, he began to serve as a major instigator of acquisitions for Solomon R. Guggenheim's collection, a relationship facilitated by Rebay. In 1930 Bauer founded Das Geistreich, a museum devoted primarily to his own non-objective work as well as the work of Vasily Kandinsky. This museum proved highly influential to Rebay as she began formulating The Museum of Non-Objective Painting for Guggenheim's collection. Das Geistreich was closed in 1939 by the Nazis, who identified the institution as being devoted to &amp;ldquo;degenerate&amp;rdquo; art. In the 1930s Bauer replaced the raucous, organic symphony of shapes he had developed in the 1910s with a more balanced, geometric esthetic, as exemplified by paintings such as Invention (Composition 31) (1933), Blue Triangle (1934), and The Holy One (Red Point) (1936). In 1933 Bauer's work was featured in the Museum of Modern Art in the exhibition Modern European Art and again in 1934 in Modern Works of Art. In 1936 Bauer traveled to the United States where his works were included in an exhibition of Guggenheim's collection in Charleston and in his own solo show at the Arts Club of Chicago. En route back to Berlin, Bauer stopped in Paris for his one-man exhibition at Jeu de Paume in 1937. The same year, Bauer's work was included in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich and Bauer himself was briefly incarcerated by the Nazis until he was released, thanks to the efforts of Solomon R. Guggenheim and Rebay's brother. Bauer moved to the United States in 1939. That same year, Bauer's Orange Accent (1929&amp;ndash;31) appeared on the flyer advertising The Art of Tomorrow, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting's inaugural exhibition. During his time in the US, Bauer taught recipients of Guggenheim grants and was frequently included in group exhibitions of Guggenheim's collection. Bauer died in his home in New Jersey in 1953. Solo exhibitions of Bauer's work have been organized by Galerie Gmurzynska in Cologne (1969 and 1971), Galerie Withofs in Brussels (1970), Annely Juda Gallery in London (1970), Staedtisches Museum in Wiesbaden (1970), and Museum Moderner Kunst in Wein (1985). His influence on the formation of the Guggenheim collection and museum were recognized in the exhibition and catalogue Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2005, as well as in the 2009 publication The Museum of Non-Objective Painting Hilla Rebay and the Origins of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Biography credit: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.&lt;/p&gt;</p>