Richard Paul Lohse
Richard Paul Lohse was a Swiss painter and graphic artist and one of the main representatives of the concrete and constructive art movements.
Lohse was born in Zürich in 1902. His wish to study in Paris was thwarted due to his difficult economic circumstances. In 1918, he joined the advertising agency Max Dalang, where he trained to become an advertising designer. Lohse, then an autodidact, painted expressive, late-cubist still lifes.
In the 1930s, his work as a graphic artist and book designer placed him among the pioneers of modern Swiss graphic design; in paintings of this period, he worked on curved and diagonal constructions. Success eventually allowed him to establish his own graphic design studio in Zürich.
He combined art with a political and moral awareness, which led him to be an activist for immigrants. In the 1930s, he was actively involved in protests, which were illegal under the government of the time. He continued to protest until the beginning of World War II.
In 1937, Lohse co-founded Allianz, an association of Swiss modern artists, with Leo Leuppi. In 1938, he helped Irmgard Burchard, to whom he was married for a brief time, to organise the London exhibition "Twentieth Century German Art". His political convictions then led him into the resistance movement, where he met his future wife Ida Alis Dürner.
The year 1943 marked a breakthrough in Lohse's painting: he standardised the pictorial means and started to develop modular and serial systems. In 1953, he published the book New Design in Exhibitions, and from 1958, he became co-editor of the magazine Neue Grafik.
Lohse's typical classic paintings are nonrepresentational, systematic, two-dimensional laminar planes of interacting colour elements in various logical/mathematical relations visible to the eye, using the structure of colour that we perceive, and in a way that every element plays an equal qualitative role.
He died in Zürich in 1988.
Detailed biography
1902Born 13 September in Zürich
1917
First realistic paintings
1918
Apprentice in graphic design at Max Dalang AG ;
studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich under Ernst Keller
1922
Employed in the advertising studio of Max Dalang AG, where he meets Hans Neuburg and Anton Stankowski
1925
Still lifes, landscapes, cubist experimental paintings
1930
Establishes own graphic design studio in Zürich
1933
Political support for émigrés;
illegal political activities until end of World War II;
co-founder of the Association of Independent Graphic Designers;
begins graphic design work for landscape architect Walter Mertens
1934
Studio and apartment in the Zett-Haus, Zürich, together with artist and gallerist Irmgard Burchard;
member of the association Friends of New Architecture
1935
Curvations
1936
Marriage to Irmgard Burchard ;
participates in the exhibition "Zeitprobleme in der Schweizer Malerei", Kunsthaus Zürich
1937
Co-founder and vice-chairman of Allianz, Association of Modern Swiss Artists;
constructions
1938
Collaboration for the exhibition "Twentieth Century German Art", New Burlington Galleries, London, initiated by Irmgard Burchard;
installs a print exhibition of German and Russian constructivists in Zürich;
begins book design work for Büchergilde Gutenberg
1939
Divorce from Irmgard Burchard;
collaboration for the Swiss national exhibition "Landi", Zürich;
begins graphic design work for turbine builder Escher Wyss
1940
May: Destroys political documents and graphic design works;
sketches ideas of diagonal, vertical and horizontal structures;
co-editor and book designer of Almanac of New Art in Switzerland
1942
Marriage to Ida Alis Dürner ;
summer: Ida Alis travels to the camp in Gurs to support persecuted people;
member of the Swiss Werkbund;
standardisation of the pictorial means: additive vertical series, objective rhythmic, serial structure systems, quantitative colour equality;
participates in the exhibition "Allianz", Kunsthaus Zürich
1943
First modular and serial systems
1944
Birth of daughter Johanna;
works on the publications abstrakt/konkret and Plan;
participates in the exhibition "Concrete Art", Kunsthalle, Basel
1946
Group thematics;
book design for Carola Giedion-Welcker, Poètes à l'Ecart – Anthologie der Abseitigen
1947
Organises with Leo Leuppi the exhibition "Concrete, Abstract, Surrealist Art in Switzerland", ;
participates in the exhibition "Abstract and Concrete Art", Palazzo Exreale, Milano;
designer and editor of the architectural review Bauen+Wohnen / Building+Home ;
begins graphic design work for Wohnbedarf
1948
Organiser of the Swiss section in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris ;
participates in the exhibition "Tendencies in Abstract Art", Galerie Denise René, Paris;
"Interrelations between Art and Architecture", a didactic concept for the Architecture Department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
1949
Swiss Prize for Painting;
attends the CIAM conference, Bergamo
1951
Organises with Sigfried Giedion the Swiss section at the "International Water Color Exhibition" Brooklyn, New York;
participates in the 1st Biennale, São Paulo;
book design for Sigfried Giedion, CIAM – A Decade of New Architecture;
at the 9th Triennale, Milano the review Bauen+Wohnen is awarded the prize "Compasso d'Oro"
1952
"World Exhibition of Photography", Lucerne – thematic design of the sections Art & Photography and Architecture & Photography
1953
Author and book designer of New Design in Exhibitions;
contributes to the review spirale
1954
Founding member of the artists’ and architects’ association espace, groupe suisse;
leading positions in the Swiss Werkbund
1957
Mural Three equal themes in five colours for the Swiss Pavilion at the 11th Milan Triennale, architect Alfred Roth ;
first one-person exhibition, Club Bel Etage, Zürich
1958
Edits the review Neue Grafik / New Graphic Design, Olten, with Josef Müller-Brockmann, Hans Neuburg and Carlo Vivarelli
1959
Editor of publication Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart on the occasion of his 60th birthday
1960
Retrospective exhibition, Kunstverein Ulm
1961
Retrospective exhibition, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
1962
Member of the Exhibition Commission of the Kunsthaus, Zürich
1964
Mural Horizontal rhythm of two themes at the Wier housing estate, Ebnat-Kappel, architect Thomas Schmid
1965
Represents Switzerland at the 8th Biennale in São Paulo
1967
Wall design Four revolving door elements, Paradies-Lenggis school, Jona-Rapperswil, architect Kurt Federer
1968
Participates in the documenta 4, Kassel
1969
Assists in the creation of the McCrory Corporation Collection, New York
1971
Sikkens Prize of the Netherlands;
one-person exhibition, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
1972
Represents Switzerland at the 36th Biennale, Venezia
1973
Art Prize of the City of Zürich. With the prize money of 12,000 Swiss Francs, Lohse acquires works by 13 young Swiss constructive artists and donates them to the Kunsthaus Zürich;
monograph Richard Paul Lohse, DuMont, Köln
1975
Appeal to the French Minister of Culture, André Malraux, for the renovation of the Villa Savoie of Le Corbusier ;
exhibition "Modular and Serial Orders", Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
1977
"World Print Competition 77" prize, San Francisco;
honorary member of "Group of Systematic-Constructive Art", Gorinchem, Netherlands
1978
Exhibition "9 Squares", Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
1982
Participates in the documenta 7, Kassel with Thematic series in 18 colours A, B and C;
mural Complementary colour series for the reading room of the Canton Zürich State Archive, architects Jakob Schilling, Claudia Bersin;
honoured by the City of Zürich on 80th birthday
1983
Appeal to Jack Lang, French Minister of Culture, for the renovation of the Aubette, Strasbourg
1986
One-person exhibition, Vienna Secession, and honorary member of the Vienna Secession
1987
Appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic by the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang;
honoured by the City of Zürich on 85th birthday;
establishes the Richard Paul Lohse Foundation, Zürich
1988
Painting Grenoble 1788, commissioned by the French State to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution in Grenoble in 1788;
retrospective exhibition at the Musée de Grenoble;
died 16 September in Zürich