Carl Ernst Sohn-Rethel

alt=Karli Sohn-Rethel, Fisherman with a Boat, (c. 1935), oil painting Karli Sohn-Rethel, Fisherman with a Boat, (c. 1935), oil painting

Carl Ernst "Karli" Sohn-Rethel (1882–1966) German Modernist painter of the Düsseldorf school of painting art movement. He traveled often and was active in Düsseldorf, Munich, Rome, Positano, Paris, among other places. Sohn-Rethel was a member of the art groups, Sonderbund group and Young Rhineland.

Biography

Early life Sohn-Rethel was born 8 May 1882, as the third child of the portrait painter Karl Rudolf Sohn and his wife, the artist Else Sohn-Rethel. His mother was the daughter of the painter Alfred Rethel. His father was the son of Karl Ferdinand Sohn. His older brothers were the painters Alfred Sohn-Rethel, the father of the philosopher Alfred Sohn-Rethel, and Otto Sohn-Rethel. His younger sister Mira was married to the painter Werner Heuser.

Career and later life After he completed his training, he traveled to Rome to meet up with his brother Otto, his brother-in-law Werner Heuser, and artists Karl Hofer, Hermann Haller and Maurice Sterne. Sohn-Rethel was in Rome from 1906 until 1912. In 1911, Karli Sohn-Rethel joined the Sonderbund group with other Düsseldorf painters. From this experience, he joined Alfred Flechtheim's gallery.

From October 1912 to May 1914, Sohn-Rethel traveled and painted with his friend Maurice Sterne, they visited Tunis, Tunisia; Varanasi, India; Mandalay, Burma; Java, Indonesia; and Bali. He returned to Europe and it was the beginning of World War I, and he stayed in Munich. In 1919 he joined the art Young Rhineland art group. He took part in the opening of the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim that same year, in 1919. Sohn-Rethel emigrated to Italy during the Nazi occupation of Germany, around 1933. He stayed with his painter friend Kurt Craemer in Positano, Italy, a city he had visited earlier in 1920.

Death and legacy In 1959, Sohn-Rethel moved back to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he died on 7 April 1966. He is buried at Nordfriedhof Düsseldorf cemetery.

WWII would destroy much of his works although some of his works survived. These surviving paintings are held at the Suermondt-Ludwig and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. among others.

Work Sohn-Rethel's early works were inspired by the works of artists Cézanne and Matisse. Later in life he created his own expressionist style. His style of painting was influenced by the abstract human figure in his landscape studies. He often rendered people's faces as abstract ovals. During his time living in Positano, he often depicted fishermen on the beach and groups of locals in his paintings.