Rudolf Bauer

Rudolf Bauer was a German-born painter who played a seminal role in the Berlin avant-garde group Der Sturm. In 1905 Bauer began his studies at the Berlin Academy of Art but left the Academy only a few months later to self-educate, and began making paintings, caricatures and comical drawings, which were published in ‘Le Figaro,’ the ‘Berliner Tageblatt,’ among others. From 1912 Bauer contributed to the 'Der Sturm' movement. In 1915, the artist met and started a relationship with Hilla von Rebay, who was pivotal in his development of abstraction and an important foil for his critical reception later in his career. Some of his influences in the 1920s came from Constructivism and De Stijl. Bauer founded a museum, 'Das Geistreich,' which was dedicated to his and Wassily Kandinsky’s non-representational painting. Hilla von Rebay, then director of the Guggenheim Collection, helped to market his work as the political situation in Germany necessitated. His contributions to Non-Objective art caught the attention of Solomon R. Guggenheim and Bauer would go on to play the central role in the founding collection of the Guggenheim Museum.