Hilla von Rebay
| Hilla Rebay | |
|---|---|
| Born |
31 May 1890 Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine |
| Died | 27 September 1967 (aged 77) Greens Farms, Connecticut |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | Director |
| Employer | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum |
| Successor | James Johnson Sweeney |
| Parent(s) | Antonie and Baron Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen |
Hildegard Anna Augusta Elizabeth FreiinRebay von Ehrenwiesen, Baroness Hilla von Rebay, or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She was a key figure in advising Solomon R. Guggenheim to collect non-objective art, a collection that would later form the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection, and she was also influential in selecting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the current Guggenheim museum, which is now known as a modernist icon in New York City.
Hilla von Rebay was born into a German aristocratic family in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, then part of the German Empire. She was the second child of Antonie and Baron Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, an officer in the Prussian army. She showed an early aptitude for art and she studied at the Cologne Kunstgewerbeschule during the academic year 1908/09. She then attended the Académie Julian in Paris from 1909 until 1910, where she received traditional training in landscape, portraiture, genre and history painting. Under the influence of the German Jugendstil painter Fritz Erler, Rebay moved to Munich in 1910 where she lived until 1911. Here, she began to develop her interest in modern art.
Invited by Dr. Arnold Fortlage, Rebay participated in her first exhibition at the Cologne Kunstverein in 1912. Fortlage was the author of the foreword to the 1911 Ferdinand Hodler exhibition in Munich, which inspired Rebay greatly to pursue her interest in modern art.
In March 1913, Rebay was exhibited alongside Archipenko, Brâncuși, Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Gleizes, Diego Rivera and Otto van Rees at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. This experience, however, was disheartening for Rebay who seemed to judge her own work as inadequate. In 1915 Rebay met Hans (Jean) Arp in Zurich. This meeting was extremely influential upon Rebay's artistic taste since it was through Arp that she was introduced to the non-objective modern art works of Kandinsky, Klee, Franz Marc, Chagall and Rudolf Bauer. At this time, Rebay was also introduced to Herwarth Walden and the avant-garde Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin.
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