Anton Räderscheidt Gemälde Ilse Salberg Photographien

Grenzgänger Flucht und Neubeginn 1936 – 1947

Anton Räderscheidt Malerei Ilse Salberg Photographie Grenzgänger Flucht und Neubeginn 1936-1947 Dieser Katalog erscheint anlässlich der Ausstellung:

Anton Räderscheidt・Malerei Ilse Salberg ・Photographie Grenzgänger・Flucht und Neubeginn 1936 - 1947

Textbeiträge: Prof. Dr. Günther Herzog Anne-Ganteführer-Trier

Copyright: Anton Räderscheidt VG Bildkunst Bonn, die Autoren

Cover Layout und Editionen Ilse Salberg: Tilmann von Mengershausen, Mengershausen Editionen, München

Portrait Anton Räderscheidt: Paul Multhaupt, 1928

Für die sachdienlichen Hinweise zu den photographischen Arbeiten Ilse Salbergs möchten wir uns bedanken bei: Galerie Berinson, Berlin M+M Auer Collection

Umschlagabbildung: Ilse Salberg ・Portrait (Anton Räderscheidt), Vintage gelatin silver print, 40 x 30 cm, 1938 Inhalt

Anton Räderscheidt Gemälde, Gouachen, Tempera, Skulpturen Günther Herzog 7 Katalog 19 Das „Photo-Auge“ der Ilse Salberg Anne Ganteführer-Trier 51 Katalog 53

Biografie 95

Ausstellungsverzeichnis 97

Anton Räderscheidt

Paintings, gouaches, tempera, sculptures

Günther Herzog

After having travelled through France in the spring of 1936 in order to look for a new home in the countryside, Anton Räderscheidt, Ilse Salberg and Ilse's daughter Brigitte Metzger finally settled in Paris after all. Räderscheidt rented an artist's studio at 26, rue des Plantes and thereby became once again a neighbor of Max Ernst's who had resided in Paris since 1922 and lived in the same house. But, as Räderscheidt retrospectively wrote in his diary, "renting a studio and setting up an easel in a foreign country doesn't mean that one is ready to paint again."

It takes him indeed a long time until he has settled in sufficiently to be able to concentrate on his canvases again.

Räderscheidt needed almost an entire year to get his bearings in Paris' art scene, so very different from the German scene he was used to. In the mid-thirties, Paris, Europe's cultural capital, resembled more a cauldron than a melting pot, and seemed to Räderscheidt as attractive as menacing. So he, who would later cynically claim that "the mass grave is the only space I can think of where I wouldn't mind any company", started looking for a refuge in the country as a second residence to his Paris studio.

During his search Räderscheidt could profit from his recent friendship with the sculptor André Bloc (1896 – 1966), who, in 1930, along with Le Corbusier and Mallet-Stevens, had founded the magazine L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui. Bloc owned a large building plot on the La Cride hill in Sanary-sur-Mer in southern France and had invited tenders for the construction of holiday homes on the site, finally choosing the designs of architects Maurice Grandjean and Joel Guenec.

Räderscheidt and Ilse Salberg purchased a plot of land from Bloc and the plans for the house "Le Patio" from Grandjean and Guenec. "Le Patio" was a pavilion inspired by the architecture of the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, with an interior courtyard and a kitchen which particularly impressed all future visitors because it boasted a very modern built-in train galley. In the same year, 1936, Räderscheidt and his new family could move into their house and spend their first summer there.

The construction of a house in Sanary and the rental of an artist's studio in Paris – in 1937, Räderscheidt had moved to a studio in the Villa Brune where Henri Laurens was his neighbor – show that Räderscheidt's financial situation was as advantageous as rarely before, thanks to Ilse Salberg's fortune. Whilst Max Ernst and others launched an appeal for donations on the occasion of Otto Freundlich's 60th birthday in 1938, which they hoped would raise funds permitting the artist who 7 lived on the edge of extreme poverty to purchase some paint, Räderscheidt had no financial problems. He was able to buy canvas and paint for extensive series of paintings and could even start a collection of works of art by Léger and Picasso.

In 1937, the year of the Universal Exposition, Räderscheidt managed to establish himself as an artist in Paris, with the help of friends he knew from Cologne such as Otto Freundlich who'd moved back to Paris in 1924, and Jankel Adler who had returned from Poland in 1937. Räderscheidt met Hans Hartung and Fernand Léger and participated from then on in the annual exhibitions of the "Salon des Surindépendants". Whilst the vast majority of the numerous artists living in exile in Paris had to content themselves with participations in collective exhibitions in order to maintain their artistic existence, Räderscheidt managed to interest a major gallery in putting on an individual exhibition of his work. The Galerie Billiet-Vorms, run by the dedicated Pierre Vorms, had become since 1934 "the most important exhibition venue for neo-realistic tendencies". Vorms had already staged exhibitions of Expressive Realism, such as "Le Retour au Sujet" (January 1934) and "Le Réalisme et la Peinture" (July 1936). The latter had been accompanied by a series of debates which had attracted much public attention, organized in the gallery by the Maison de la Culture, and whose goal it was to "stir humanity from its apathy", as Georges Besson wrote in the Commune of August 1936.

From May to June 1937, and further to exhibitions of George Grosz, Lind and Frans Masereel, Pierre Vorms exhibited Anton Räderscheidt's approximately forty paintings – not quite dry when they were hung – of the series "Les Monstres", nearly all of whom had disappeared and were only recently partially rediscovered. The well-known art critic Louis Chéronnet opened the exhibition with an introductory speech reproduced on the invitation:

"One has to paint dangerously. Räderscheidt, who's come here from Cologne, via Berlin, and who exhibits for the first time in Paris, continues to paint dangerously. None of the old eruptive forces of German Expressionism have calmed down in him. He is still possessed by a dark interior fire. Out of a still agitated, restless and insubordinate matter he skilfully creates his fierce compositions. Without any intention to seduce. Not even by his choice of colours. Räderscheidt paints in powerful, pure tones, but almost entirely without exterior light, and it is just this organic difficulty of the whole creation which captivates us in these paintings. They contain the whole pathos of our primal origins. And in his bulks of naked bodies, opposing the mighty arabesques of the ocean, I see the synthetic emergence of Man, dominant yet always in revolt. Half-way between abstraction and realism and driven by a particular metaphysical will, Räderscheidt's art appeals to our profoundest sensitivities: in those regions of our self where reflection on our existence is a numb pain." Considering the scarce and extremely fragmentary information about Räderscheidt's years in exile, marked by loss and escape, about which the artist himself has mostly refused to speak and which therefore have to be painstakingly 8 retraced from different sources, this clearly identifiable painting is a stroke of luck. Along with three other paintings from 1936 which were found only recently – but also only in the form of black and white photographs by Marc Vaux – it sheds light on a phase of Räderscheidt's work in exile which was so far virtually unknown but is clearly extremely important for the evaluation of his future development.

The art historian Paul Westheim, who had emigrated to Paris in 1933 and who had been one of the most important personalities in the German art scene which he now tried to keep alive in Paris, saw in Räderscheidt's paintings exhibited at the Billiet-Vorms gallery the result of three years of restless wandering outside of Germany, which, according to him, had ushered in a new phase of "enrichment and maturity": "He has acquired this decisive discipline which has much in common with modern architecture and which creates clearly outlined forms and reliefs out of the construction. This is a form of art which works with sharply outlined plane contours, which opposes obscurity and brightness and creates the space by means of contrasting different surface areas. This discipline, this "sens constructif", which transforms a painted surface into artistic creation, allows him to work more freely and more skilfully with his means. He doesn't have to renounce the charms of the picturesque anymore, nor the personal touch, the brilliance of colours, the diversity of nuances. This new posture comes accompanied by a force of expression; a vision which is enhanced by light, colour and life. He is showing for example two big compositions, tightly constructed, a pyramid of bodies in a wide orchestration which is almost baroquely expansive and which exudes a verve and a vibrancy that are deeply sincere. The fact that Räderscheidt had to leave the limited and confined German scene in which he evolved has definitely been beneficial to him."

Westheim too refers to Räderscheidt's big format painting "Les Noyés" with his "pyramid of bodies", of swollen and distended bodies without face or with an amorphously mutated physiognomy, crushed by their own weight. The pyramidal composition of this archaic end times painting is inspired by traditional representations of deluge and wreckage, from mannerism to Théodore Géricault's "Raft of the Medusa".

Although the agitated, round and voluminous forms make Westheim think of a "wide orchestration which is almost baroquely expansive" and Franz Roh of "a kind of gigantic baroque", Räderscheidt proves in this multi- figured painting that he is still a master of reduction. He doesn't narrate the catastrophe by a multitude of motives and details, but interprets it Les Noyés, 1936 essentially as a catastrophe befalling the human 9 being who is reduced to the state of creatureliness and bare existence.

Even though this painting, as well as the following ones, documents Räderscheidt's newly-won self-confidence after his departure from the bourgeois puppet universe of the "Magic Realism" and shows him to be a much more liberated and skilful artist, this evolution would nevertheless have been unthinkable without the experience of the "Magic Realism". It is the formally consistent continuation of a personal style of composition characterized by indispensable statics – the "sens constructif" – and the transmission of the multi-figured arrangements of the "new era" paintings into a much more liberated, less inhibited and more elegant artistic style. Just as in the portrait of Davringhausen, the sharply outlined figures are represented from various angles.

The anonymously standardized human being as a creature as such is simultaneously displayed in his multivalency: from front and back, in profile, from above and below, in three-dimensional volume, as a mere outline on the surface and in different positions. This method of leading the spectator to see a "holistic image" by assembling "fragmentary views" had been developed by Cubism. Surrealism, especially Salvador Dali through his simultaneous portraits showing multiple views of Gala, also pursued, by its own typical means, this form of representation close to the principles of psychoanalysis and questioning the human perception. Räderscheidt adopted this method in a manner corresponding to his own expressive and realistic needs.

The diversity of the stylistic components of a work of art such as "Les Noyés" reflects the heterogeneous situation of art in the second half of the 1930's, when Cubism and Surrealism with their outstanding artists' personalities certainly were the dominant genres, but were nevertheless accompanied by styles which can be described as the first résumés and revisions of the 20th century's newly invented, modern means of expression: Neo-Expressionism, Constructivist Realism, Cubo-Realism, Post-Cubism and Expressive Realism were styles which could maintain themselves beyond the phase of abstraction and until today, and which were promoted in the 1930's by the Billiet-Vorms gallery's individual and collective exhibitions. Räderscheidt produces such a résumé once again in another painting of the series "Les Monstres" from 1936, which we only know through photographs. This large-format painting which, according to Chéronnet and just like the others of Titel unknown, 1936 the same series, we have to image as coloured in 10 "violent, pure tones" shows four male nudes nested into a coloured surface grid in which three abstracted diving boards constitute horizontal focal points. The composition is dominated by the very bright figure of an amphibian Cyclops, which can be found slightly tilted in the right half of the painting, in a frontal representation, and which seems to emerge from the water and rise to the painting's surface. This is the monstrous synthesis of the monumental figure of an archaic kouros with the receding features, deformed by stupor, of a bloated water spirit seemingly inspired by a Böcklin painting, with round, swollen limbs which bear similarities to Picasso's giantesses and Léger's plump humans.

The figure seen from behind in the centre of the painting, characterized by darker contrasts, seems just as statue-like and monumental. Like the first monstrous creature, it can be seen, through the simultaneity of views from above and from below, in several contradictory perspectives which furthermore conflict with those of the figure on the right. The three-dimensionality and perspectivity suggested by the nested figures is once more interrupted by the rectangular positioning of the two other figures towards the upper edge of the composition: The upper one is shown frontally in a swimming position, whilst the lower one, preparing to dive, pauses, and so appears simultaneously from behind and in profile.

Bidding farewell to his artistic past, Räderscheidt resumes in this work once again the stylistic means he has used in the past but at the same time distances himself from them. The possibility of change is introduced into his thematic focus on the state of the human mind in desperate and static situations, by the sketch-like addition of different motives of movement and immobility. By abandoning the self- portrait, indispensable until then, Räderscheidt implies a possible way out of his solipsism. The mutation of the "Man with a Rigid Hat", painted in the style of the New Objectivity, into a surreal, monstrous nude – incidentally already implied in an earlier painting from 1920 – testifies to a liberation of exterior constraints in favour of a confident expression of the artistic psyche. The character of collage and montage still very much present in this painting will be abandoned in the same year; an evolution which is already evident in the third painting of the "Monstres" series (see page 22).

For in this beach scene too, the motive of the bathers which preoccupies Räderscheidt since the construction of his house on the Côte d'Azur and which dominates his paintings from 1936 to 1938, is alienated in a surrealist manner and has become an apocalyptic vision – an impression which is certainly reinforced by the reduction of the colours in the black and white photographs. The figures are now not simply added onto a surface but are harmoniously integrated in a plausible albeit fictitious space, and even cast shadows. They are not designed anymore as simple additions of head, torso and limbs like the manichini (mannequins) of the 1920's, but within their supple contour, resembling a cell membrane, they appear to be elastic, no longer rigid and static, but in dynamic movement even when they are standing still. Within their outlines, Räderscheidt has transformed them into abstract 11 figures devoid of all individuality, going so far as to renounce all features. Strong contrasts between darkness and light and an artful foreshortening of the perspective - whose skilful mastery attests in retrospect once again of the intentional element in the awkward and wooden stiffness of earlier human representations - give the figures an extremely three-dimensional and extensive volume and make them appear like painted sculptures.

But the most obvious and important change has occurred with regard to the relations of the depicted figures between themselves and towards themselves. Räderscheidt's humans don't appear any more as empty vessels, without any self- determination, lethargic and apathetic, but self-confident, living a meaningful and potentially active life. The couple which dominates the scene is not lonely anymore, as would be two people who live together without caring for their partner. This couple has an intense relationship, nestled up to each other like two people who can't exist on their own and are always there for each other. At the centre of the painting appears a discreet reminiscence to the "lonely couples" and the "sports paintings" of the 1920's: The "Man with a Rigid Hat", a regular appearance in Räderscheidt's work, firstly as the figure to which the spectator can refer and who represents the spectator in the painting, and secondly as a funfair showman offering an object for contemplation, has now become an athletic kouros and has thereby been invested with a different signification. His position is weakened by the compact and voluminous overpowering couple and by the back view of a figure lying behind him on his left.

A lying female nude radiating a great tranquility is also the motive of the last painting from 1936 – which we only know from a photograph – in which Räderscheidt turns towards the study of the individual figure and tries to unite and thereby to intensify the expressive power and possibilities of several figures into a single one. The curvy and Titel unknown, 1936 beautifully rounded forms of the woman sleeping in the surf of the waves contrast with the seemingly immaterial sea foam, whose colouring has been wildly applied with a spatula, and bestow on this nude too a sculptural three-dimensionality in which contrary touches of white heightening 12 create the surreal effect of a photographic negative. Even in the black and white reproduction, the urging vehemence and the vibrant spontaneity of the emotionally driven process of painting are clearly visible, for example in the emphatic way in which Räderscheidt follows time and again the contours of his figures and thereby infuses his lines with an ornamental existence of their own, or in which he creates reliefs by decisive brush strokes.

Whilst the art genre of "Magic Realism" technically and stylistically separated into the extremely self-controlled and self-denyingly disciplined oil painting on the one hand, and the sketch-like, impulsive gouache and watercolour painting on the other hand, Räderscheidt, from that time on, wouldn't make a distinction between these techniques anymore. Having learnt that tempera painting allowed him to work more quickly and was furthermore able to permanently retain the spontaneity and vehemence of his working process by forming streaks and drops, he would in the future prefer this method to oil painting. From this period on, the exalted and ecstatic positions which Räderscheidt forces upon his figures in often daring perspective foreshortenings correspond to the unrestrained expressivity of the painting process, and his paintings abound with bodies radically and brutally overstretched and deformed, elongated and compressed, kneaded and tortured.

The gouache "La Baigneuse" (see page 25), one of the first works from 1938, is a stylistic continuation of the "Monstres" from 1936, but works with bold reductions and a perspective characterized by extreme optical foreshortening and an audacious spectator's vantage point. This nude with bent legs which is presented to the spectator as seen from below has been conferred an emphatic three- dimensionality through a few skilful brush strokes in black, white and umber. It has been compressed monumentally and voluminously into the image format from which it threatens to burst, so that the female body appears as a menacingly gigantic and elemental monstrosity.

Franz Roh saw in these paintings from 1936 to 1939, which, like Räderscheidt's entire oeuvre created before his return to Germany, could only partially be rescued or rediscovered, signs of an "animal-like instinct", for example in the "Apollo and Daphne" from 1936 (see page 21), missing up to this day, "where man and woman are once again confronted. Apollo stands like a mere outline in the background while the foreshortened woman lies towards the spectator, half like a pregnant Mother Nature rooted in the soil, half like a drunk monster rolling on the floor. Out of her sinister limbs buds emerge like wounds, and some sort of vegetation grows out of her heavy foot lifted in the air. The metamorphosis by which the woman eludes being taken by the man, described rather poetically in the ancient Greek myth, has turned here into a nightmarish transformation, which makes one almost think of Grünewald's 'Temptation of St. Anthony'."

Just as the compositions on the subject of the "bathers", the painting of a nude sitting in an almost acrobatic position on a large-format pen and ink drawing 13 executed with a brush, attests of Räderscheidt's intuitive, spontaneous and unreflecting work method. So focused is he on trying to urgently capture his momentary impulses that his image format frequently becomes too small for him and he has to brutally force his rather generously dimensioned figures into the format to which they have to submit and adapt or lose their heads. Räderscheidt has managed in this drawing, in a truly ingenious "deconstructivist" manner and with only a small number of lines, to form a seemingly three-dimensional body out of the knot of two legs and an arm, which in his compactness is extremely consistent with the image.

Compared to this drawing, the motive of a sitting female nude seen from behind, a kind of cyclopic Akt 38, 1938 Iphigenia, seems relatively natural (see page 29).

Räderscheidt's exclusive focus on nude painting (judging from the works that could be saved) during his French exile can on the one hand simply be explained as a choice of motive – the entirety of the paintings described so far, deformed as they may be, draw on the motive range of the "bathers" so often used by the Expressionists by whom Räderscheidt was clearly influenced – and would have been a natural choice for a passionate swimmer living on the Côte d'Azur. On the other hand, the exclusivity and originality of nude painting corresponds fundamentally to the exclusivity and originality of the essential form of painting practiced by Räderscheidt: through his art, the painter can experience himself as an artist in action and it is much more this experience, rather than a topical message, that he wants to convey. Through his method of painting he realizes the autonomy and independence of the painting's components surface, colour and space, remains figurative despite a growing tendency to abstraction, and focused on the human being whom he allows to empathize and to experience himself. It is this principle, to which Räderscheidt has remained faithful all his life, that explains the quality of his art, and that distinguishes his style from concrete and absolute painting which tried to find its fundamental purity, its essence, in an abstract and informal style.

How far Räderscheidt's abstraction can go is documented in gouaches such as "La Méduse" (see page 24) and "Pique-nique à Portissol" (see page 31). The former shows a swimmer, a female nude with amorphously unnatural, amoeba-like forms, in an ocean whose waves are represented by parallel white brush strokes resembling the bricks of a wall. The idyll promised in the title "Pique-nique à Portissol" is in reality a monstrous delusion revealing a beach scene gaped at by decaying fish. Three figures whose extremely analytically drawn bodies seem to blend in with the cellular structure of the dark-blue ocean dominate the painting. In their 14 overstretched, ecstatic gymnastic bridge position they seem to be in a transitory moment of transformation from women into animals or animals into women; a process in which breasts look like eyes and stylized, phantom-like heads like snouts. The ironically and irritatingly implied equal value of animal and human being, suggested by the motive, corresponds to Räderscheidt's painting method in which he unhesitatingly, spontaneously and vehemently, furiously and skilfully discharges his paint on the canvas.

Just as with the "evil paintings" created thirty years later, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to precisely establish the influences for Räderscheidt's radical art, isolated at the time of its creation apart from a loose connection to Expressionism and its predecessors. Pierre Vorms has appropriately displayed Räderscheidt's affective and extreme paintings in between an exhibition of the "Indélicats" group and another one of "Art Cruel". The "Art Cruel", which Pierre Vorms defined as an art form with the will to provoke and to mobilize the audience, and which expressed the artists' anger about their impotence and helplessness in the face of fascism, could not establish itself (anymore?) within the variety of styles at the end of the 1930's, shortly before the outbreak of the war, and has so far barely been researched. However, in view of its affiliation to Realism and its claim for artistic subjectivity and strong emotions, it seems to be, just like "Art Brut", of particular importance with regard to the historical classification of post-war figurative painting.

"Brutal" was the term used by Jean-Maurice Hermann to describe Räderscheidt's paintings shown from 4th to 18th November 1938 at the exhibition "Freie Deutsche Kunst" (Free German Art), which had been organized by the "Freier Künstlerbund (FKB)" (Free Artists' Association) under the patronage of the "Schutzverband Deutscher Schriftsteller (SDS)" (Association for the Protection of German Authors) on the occasion of the "German cultural week" in the Paris Maison de la Culture.

The "Free Artists' Association" in Paris was founded on 20 April 1938 as the follow- up organization of the "Association of German artists" which had been set up in September 1937 in reaction to the national-socialist propaganda exhibition "Degenerate Art", inaugurated on the 19th July of the same year. As Eugen Spiro explained at the opening of the "Free German Art" exhibition, a number of artists had formed the association because these artists who had emigrated from Germany and Austria "could not bear any constraints or any coercion dictated from above on our artistic work and our individual artistic expression, or because we were forbidden to pursue our artistic profession for so- called racial reasons." Spiro was chairman of the Association which counted approximately thirty members and was co-chaired by Max Ernst, Heinz Lohmar, Victor Tischler, Gert Wollheim and the art critics and historians Paul Westheim and Sabine Spiro. Honorary chairman was Oskar Kokoschka, whose Prague "Oskar Kokoschka Association" had affiliated itself to the "Free Artists' Association". In a previously quoted letter, Räderscheidt had successfully applied for membership in 15 the "Free Artists' association". On 16th August 1938, from Sanary, he wrote to Spiro: "Westheim informed me of the existence of the Artists' Association. He gave me your address and advised me to join the Association which I would like to do with the greatest interest."

The decision, "as the first and foremost task of the Association, to organize an exhibition of the free art ostracized in Germany" had already been taken at the foundation meeting of the predecessor organization, the Association of German Artists. In London, too, a similar counter-exhibition was prepared, however not by the concerned artists themselves, but by art historians and critics under the chairmanship of Herbert Read, with exhibits belonging to emigrated art dealers and collectors. When it became clear that the London organizers – by their own account out of consideration for the artists still remaining in Germany – did by no means intend to use their exhibition as a political forum, the "Free Artists' Association" stopped their collaboration on this project which would finally be given the euphemistic and neutral name of "Exhibition of 20th Century German Art" instead of the title "Banned Art", and opened on 7th July 1938. "It is true that the exhibition committee would like to prove wrong Hitler's notion of 'Degenerate Art'", Paul Westheim wrote in an extremely disapproving review. "But in a way which doesn't hurt Mr. Hitler too much!" In contrast to the London exhibition where "Jews and emigrants were not desired as patrons", the Paris exhibition "Free German Art" was entirely organized by concerned artists and constituted the "biggest attempt of the artists' community emigrated from Germany to draw attention, by means of a collective exhibition, to the art persecuted by the National-Socialists and to inform the French public about the artistic barbarianism in the Third Reich." That this event did indeed have the desired impact was due to the display of a Kokoschka painting which had been cut into pieces by the Gestapo in Vienna, and of the facsimile of a sanguine drawing by Renoir ("Rhône et Saône"), also destroyed by the National- Socialists, for whom these two famous artists were as "degenerate" as even Rembrandt and Matthias Grünewald were for a while.

When the "Berlinische Galerie", on the occasion of the exhibition "Stationen der Moderne", tried to retrace the twenty most important art exhibitions of the 20th century, the "Freie Deutsche Kunst" exhibition proved to be the most difficult event to research. Since there is no known catalogue to the exhibition, Inka Graeve, in charge of the project, had to painstakingly piece together the memories of former participants and written sources such as contemporary reviews. Out of seventy artists, not all of whom belonged to the FKB, only twenty-four could be ascertained, and not all of their works displayed could be identified with absolute certainty. This was also the case with Räderscheidt. According to Räderscheidt himself, the paintings he put on show had been his latest works and not, as was the case for some of the other artists, older paintings dating from the heyday of their national and international recognition. Judging from this, the paintings shown by Räderscheidt, so "brutal" according to Hermann's review in the Populaire, must have been created in 1938 and their style must have corresponded to the works from 16 this time already described and yet to be presented. That the critics found Räderscheidt's paintings brutal is due first of all to the effect produced by these works of art as such (some of which are analyzed in the present article) – an effect which hasn't lessened to this day – and secondly to the contrast they formed with the other, rather undramatic works on display who were relatively "harmless" in order to refute the reproach of "abnormal degeneracy" but in comparison to which Räderscheidt's new and radical art must have seemed spectacular.

As for many other émigré painters, the exhibition "Freie Deutsche Kunst" could have been the stepping stone to a new career for Räderscheidt too, had it not been for the first signs of the imminent catastrophe and in particular the anti-Jewish pogroms triggered on the pretext of Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of the German diplomat vom Rath in Paris on 7 November 1938, which dominated the entire press from that day on.

From the paintings Räderscheidt created until the beginning of the war in early September 1939, only a few could be saved. But seen in their entirety they allow the reconstruction of a body of work remarkable at the time for its inner diversity and stylistic independence and in which Räderscheidt masterfully sounds out a large experimental space between figuration and abstraction. As mentioned earlier, it is difficult to compare Räderscheidt's art of the late 1930's to anything else or to identify models or examples, apart from the occasional flirt with cubo-expressionist tendencies which are however inspired by his own period of constructivist influence. Most of Räderscheidt's paintings from these years, such as a work from the series of the " Divers" (see pages 26 and 27), with its composition of three- dimensional figures in a linear and ornamental space, "La Méditerranée" and the "Tennis player", one of the last paintings of 1938, illustrate the constructivist origin of Räderscheidt's cubisms and their free, undogmatic, sometimes anarchic use in an actionnist and expressive transformation. Räderscheidt's "sens constructif", his constructivist self-control, which is clearly visible again in the geometric reminiscences of the 1938 "Tennis player" (a motive taken up from the "Magic Realism"), can also be entirely abandoned, e.g. in the gouaches of a series of blue, white and red "phantoms" which he painted at the outbreak of the war and who capture, in a style of the most extreme reduction and in selective essence, the dangerous and urgent situation of Räderscheidt himself in particular and of many people in France in general (see pages 32 and 33). These paintings show extremely primitive creatures who are not quite human anymore and who crane their distraught turtle-like heads with their wide open eyes and elongated necks towards each other, whilst their hectic movements are indicated through a comic-book style- figure where two heads looking in opposite directions sit on one and the same body. In their entire artistic composition, in the intellectually totally unrestrained, impulsive and instinctive manner of painting, the primitiveness of the drawing and the physiognomies, in their chaotic "composition and their limited range of colours", these images are reduced to the representation of a single, uncontrollable emotion: panic. 17 ! Katalog

Apollo et Daphne・Öl auf Leinwand ・146 x 113,6 cm・1936

21 Das verschalte Paar ・Öl auf Leinwand・146 x 113,7 cm・1936

22 Gymnastique・Öl auf Leinwand・85,5 x 65 cm・1938

23 La Meduse ・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・65,5 x 81,5・1938

24 La Baigneuse・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・60 x 80 cm・1938

25 Turmspringer in Portissol II・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・80 x 65 cm・1938

26 Turmspringer in Portissol I ・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・75 x 58 cm・1938

27 Port Breton ・Aquarell und Gouache auf Papier・50 x 65 cm 1936

28 Akt am Strand・ Tempera auf Karton・80 x 60 cm ・1938

29 Les nus sur la plage・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・81,5 x 64,5 cm・1938

30 Pique-nique à Portissol・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・60 x 80 cm・1938

31 Fantômes I・Tempera auf Papier・65 x 81,5 cm・1939

32 Fantômes I・Tempera auf Papier・65 x 81,5 cm・1939

33 Femmes au camp・Aquarell und Gouache auf Papier・65 x 46 cm・1940

34 Les Internés et le verre d‘eau・Pastell auf Papier・45 x 25,8 cm・1943

35 Les Survivantes・Pastell auf Papier・31,5 x 25,5 cm・1943

36 Les Apatrides・Tempera auf Karton・62 x 48,5 cm・1944

37 La Mere et l‘enfant・Gouache und Tempera auf Karton・81 x 64 cm・1940

38 La Mere et l‘enfant noir・Aquarelle und Gouache auf Papier・80 x 62 cm・1939

39 Daphne・Pastell auf Papier・31,6 x 26,5 cm・1945

40 Le couple retrouvé・Öl auf Leinwand・100 x 80 cm・1944

41 o.T.・Aquarell und Bleistift auf Papier・41,5 x 29,5 cm・1945

42 o.T.・Pastell auf Papier・34,4 x 24 cm ・1944

43 La transatantique・Pastell auf Papier・26 x 34・1944

44 La jeune fille dans les images・Pastell auf Papier・62 x 47 cm・1945

45 Femme et chat au divan 2・Pastell auf Papier・42 x 56 cm・1946

46 Femme et chat au divan・ Öl auf Leinwand・60 x 80 cm・1946

47 Anton 3 Köpfe・Öl auf Leinwand・80 x 60 cm・1947

48 Ilse Salberg à Sanary・Tempera auf Karton・65 x 47 cm・1937

49

The “photographic eye” of Ilse Salberg By Anne Ganteführer-Trier

“The photographic eye. What’s that? Nothing more than your own eye, dear reader. Why do we call your eye like that? Because we hope that you don’t simply photograph anything you come across but that you photograph after thorough re- flection, a selection and with an unfailing eye. The unfailing eye – that’s where the diffi- culty begins. Some are born with it, some don’t have it at all but think they do; others say to themselves: why should I be learning this, this is surely something very boring, I don’t see the point, etc. But we say: an unfailing eye, the capacity to determine in a second the best lighting for a face, an occurrence, to grasp immediately the propor- tions, the space, the extract or the natural configuration of people or objects under an artificial source of light, the well-chosen distribution of light and shadow; or yet again the originality of a movement, of a form, in short: the relevant uniqueness defining the value of a photograph or at least increasing it: this capacity is everything. Whoever has this capacity has a photographic eye. The meaning and value of a photograph is not defined by the idea, the imagination or the ‘motive’, but by what you see.“1 The few surviving high-quality original prints of photographer Ilse Salberg which have been discovered so far, bear witness to a woman who was a professionally skilled pho- tographer and confidently used her own visual language which in the 1930’s and early 1940’s can only be described as progressive. Her enlargements in 30 x 40 or 40 x 50 formats are always developed on high-quality baryta paper, with Ilse Salberg’s pencil annota- tion of the title on the back. Some of them are numbered and bear her photographer’s stamp. From the serial handwritten number- ing we can deduce that Salberg continually Example of a verso worked on advancing and completing her se- ries of images and consistently built up her body of work. Anton Räderscheidt’s notes reveal that Ilse Salberg owned a Linhof Technika camera (6 x 9) with bellows, four Schneider camera lenses and a Leica M3 with three Zeiss camera lenses.2

1 Raoul Hausmann, probably in 1931. Cf. Eva Züchner (ed.), Scharfrichter der bürgerlichen Seele. Raoul Hausmann in Berlin 1900-1933. Unveröffentlichte Briefe Texte Doku- mente aus den Künstler-Archiven der Berlinischen Galerie, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Ostfildern, 1998, p. 404.

2 Anton Räderscheidt Archives, Cologne 51 Ilse Salberg was born on 9 January 1901 in Görlitz (Silesia) to a Jewish family. She married the collector and art patron Rudolf Metzger but in 1933 she met Anton Räderscheidt, a painter from Cologne. In 1934, Salberg and Räderscheidt

Ilse Salberg “Navel“ 1939 moved to Berlin and emigrated shortly thereafter to France via Switzerland and England. There, the couple shared a studio in the rue des Plantes in Paris, where Max Ernst and Henri Laurens were among their neighbours. In 1936, they travelled for the first time to Sanary-sur-Mer near Toulon and built a house, “Le Patio”, in the vicinity of other artists. At the beginning of the 1940’s the artist couple fled to Switzerland where Ilse Salberg died in 1947 after a long and serious illness. By the time Ilse Salberg and Anton Räderscheidt arrived Navel Arp there, numerous intellectual émigrés from National-Socialist Germany had already settled in the fishing village Sanary-sur- Mer. Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Ludwig Marcuse, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Zweig, Franz Werfel and Lion Feuchtwanger, to name but a few, lived for some time in the idyllic coastal Wols „Torso“ village in the south of France, as well as artists such Eugen Spiro, Erich Klossowski and Walter Bondy.3 In her house in Sanary-sur-Mer, Ilse Salberg set up a professionally equipped darkroom. Nothing is known so far about her photographic training. Furthermore, we can only guess the extent of her photographic oeuvre. Most of her work is undoubtedly lost. By a fortunate coincidence her oeuvre could be further completed when part of her pho- tographic legacy was found in a cave in Barjols (Var department). This newly saved part of her multifaceted oeuvre casts a significant light on her expres- sive visual language. The photographs allow an insight into the intensive dialogue she maintained with renowned artists and photographers such as Wols, Hans Bellmer and Max Ernst in the 1930’s. In 1939, her partner Anton Räderscheidt and some of these artists were imprisoned in the internment camp “Les Milles” near Aix-en-Provence. Ilse Salberg belonged and contributed to the artistic style of her time, be it through the contact with her artist friends or through her work carried out in isolation. The shots of body parts of Anton Räderscheidt show sections of his physical presence. They don’t represent a global perception but rather a look into the private sphere and the naked and intimate presence of things.

3 Cf. www.frankreich-sued.de/sanary-sur-mer-server.html 52 Ilse Salberg „Anton en détail“, 1938

The photograph “Arp’s navel”, probably shot in 1929 in Carnac by an anonymous pho- tographer has, in comparison with Salberg’s anatomical views of Anton Räderscheidt, an anecdotic character: the image in portrait format shows the artist’s torso, from his armpits to his mid-thighs. In the background a blurred sand and dunes landscape can be made out. Hans Arp’s navel forms the central point of the photography, and is, by means of a shadow play, indicated by the index finger of a hand held between sun and stomach. The picture thus indirectly expresses the playful mood on the beach and allu- des to several participants: the artist being the motive, the photographer and finally the hand of a third person or of the photographer; a hand which in the image takes on the role of an independent protagonist.4 Ilse Salberg’s view on Anton Räderscheidt’s navel testifies to a strong intimacy and in- tensity between the photographer and the nakedly sunbathing artist. And yet these photos express more than just a tender scan of the lover’s detailed landscapes. Deta- ched from a narrative context, the shot of Räderscheidt’s stomach draws the viewer’s attention to the surface structure of his bent and creased body. The concavities around his chest become dark shadow spots while the elevations appear in a radiantly bright light. The darkest area is formed by a crease above the navel and by the shadow un- derneath the body. The strong sunlight exposure confers the photograph an almost solarized aspect. The shots of Anton Räderscheidt’s armpits, the left corner of his mouth, the underside of his right foot, the back of his hand and his palm, or of a part of his left ear up to his hairline bear witness to Salberg’s ongoing concentration on his intimate body structu- res. All these views, even those of his shoulders, express a subjective liberty. For the

4 The photograph “Arp’s navel“ was shown in the exhibition “Art is Arp“ in the Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck (13.3.-14.6.2009) as a spatial element covering an entire wall. Cf. Art is Arp. Zeichnungen, Collagen, Reliefs, Skulpturen, Poesie, Exhibition catalogue Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, 2009, p. 31. 53 composition of her images, Ilse Salberg does not rely on any balanced arrangements. Bearing in mind aspects of art and photography history, her photographs rather de- monstrate an individual and independent approach of the motive. Furthermore, her pictures convey a situation of reclusiveness, of a very private cocoon hermetically clo- sed to any political interrogations.

“If one carefully examines a face, then it becomes a landscape, either a cheerful and radiating female one, or a rough male one, shrouded in seriousness. On the northern peak one can almost always find a forest – sometimes a golden forest with a thousand trunks. There are also reddish and brown hair forests, pitch-black or silvery-white ones covered in frost. The forehead’s beautiful mountain range lies south of the forest. Its slopes are ivory or rose-couloured and deep wrinkles undulate on the vast plateau of the forehead whilst tiny, cute little wrinkles move along in time like a well-trained dancing group. The forehead’s field shines like silk and where the noble form of the mound with all its delicate elevations ends, the subtle lines of the brows descend across the landscape like charming half-moon shapes.“5

P.E. Hahn „Der Sprecher“ 1929 Ilse Salberg Wols „Grétys Mund“, 1933 “Portrait“ 1938

5 Carl Schnebel, “Das Gesicht als Landschaft“, in: UHU, issue 5, february 1929, pp. 42-44. 54 Other motives such as the detail of a lemon or the morbid looking body parts of a slaughtered chicken convey a direct impression of the blunt severity of contemporary still life photography. Concentrated on the “here and now” during the shootings of her still lifes with beans, artichokes, lemons and other vegetal and animal fragments, Ilse Sal- berg deliberately seems to ignore the political context which brought her and Anton Räderscheidt to Sanary-sur-Mer. Or can we see a concentration on something more authentic when we examine for example her still life with eggs, frying-pan, plate and fork? That a still life is usually not as easily to execute as it might seem on first impressions, is demonstrated by a description of Ellen Auerbach who in 1929 assis- ted her teacher Walter Peterhans during the pho- tographic documentation of the still life “Pythagore- an theorem”: “I will never forget how I once assis- ted his preparations for a still life composed of six small items: wool, silk, chiffon, etc. which he wanted Ilse Salberg „Nature morte“ Vintage 1938 to photograph. With the help of two 500 watt light bulbs and with admirable persistency and sensitivity he worked for hours. With a pair of tweezers he might move a loose thread by one or two millime- ters. By relocating the lamps from one spot to a- nother, he made me understand the importance of light for the creation of an expressive photograph – of romantic background lighting as well as of the flat and cold light in the foreground. When the wool finally looked as fluffy as possible and the silk as silky as possible, he was ready to expose the negative. The “Pythagorean theorem”, ca. 1929 But when he developed the plate he seemed dissa- tisfied and abandoned his still life for the day. On the next morning he had found the reason for his dissatisfaction. A tiny bit of brightness of minimal day light was missing after nightfall.“6 Apart from Walter Peterhans and Wols one could name numerous other contempora- ries of the artistic avant-garde, next to Ilse Salberg, who founded a tradition of surreal object photography which has a continuing effect until today.7

6 Ellen Auerbach, “Walter Peterhans”, in: Fotografien 1922-1982. Photokina-Bilderschauen, Cologne, 1982, p. 5.

7 Cf. on the same subject: Peter Weiermair (ed.), The Nature of StillLife. From Fox Talbot to the Present Day, Electa, Milan, 2001; Thomas Seelig, Urs Stahel (eds.), Im Rausch der Dinge. Vom Funktionalen Objekt zum Fetisch in Fotografien des 20. Jahrhunderts, exhibition catalogue Photography Museum Winterthur, Photography Museum Switzerland, Steidl, Göttingen, 2004. 55 Just as in Wols’ “Rabbit with comb and harmonica”, the fragmented being in its absolute defencelessness is dissected, composed and recorded in Ilse Salberg’s still life “Le coq est mort”. Both artists saw their human models in a similarly fragmented way. The time of the Weimar Republic represented a very productive period for artistic experimentations in many countries. These were accompanied by the tri- umph of avant-garde photography in magazines such as UHU (Ullstein Verlag, Berlin) or Das Magazin (Dr

Wols Kaninchen 1938/39 Galerie Eysler & Co. Verlag, Berlin). Through this medium pho- Berinson, Berlin tographic images reached big parts of the intellectual public and gained a considerable popularity. A significant example for a publication of a work by Ilse Salberg is a photography in the French and the English editions of the lavishly produced magazine Ver- ve. In issue n° 4, January – March 1939, there is a re- production, on page 98, of her picture of a blossoming dandelion. The magazine Verve, edited in Paris by E. Té- riade, published high-quality black and white or colour photogravures of works of art by Bill Brandt, Josef Breitenbach, Brassaï, Willy Maywald and many artists Ilse Salberg „Le coq est mort“, 1938-1940 such as Henri Matisse, Henri Laurens, or André Derain to name but a few. The liberty of the photographers reached from most intimate portraits which until then would have been judged as non-representative, to unusual perspectives on architecture and urban landscapes, cha- racterized by diagonal image structures and graphic compositions. When asked about the photograph he considered his most important work, a still life with a fork, André Kertesz replied: “Why do I think that this picture is my best? – Because I succeeded to render the object in the most immediate and pure way by the strong suggestivity of shadow, light and lines.”8 Even then photography had already become more than simply a reproductive medium. Franz Roh gave the following explanation in his text “mechanism and expression” in the magazine foto-auge in 1929: “from this individual constant alone, which also continues to exist in a striking manner in the arts, one can see that there has to be an underlying principle of organization and

8 André Kertesz in the October 1929 issue of the magazine UHU, about his photograph “The fork”, p. 36. 56 individuality in every photograph. photographs taken by one person always seem insi- pid, even if he or she has the technical capacities, whereas those of other people al- ways create a strong impression even if they define themselves as amateurs and don’t have the perfect technique. the principle of organization does not lie here, contrary to the graphic arts, in the globally prevailing manual transformation of a random piece of reality, but in the action of choosing a particularly expressive extract of reality. whereas a thousand methods of remelting and reducing the exterior world exist in the graphic arts, there are a hundred possibilities in photography regarding perspective, extract, lighting but especially the choice of the object itself.”9

Many aspects of Ilse Salberg’s oeuvre still seem vague today. Despite the scarce frag- ments of her artistic work currently known, it becomes evident that her photographs were an integral part of a photographic avant-garde which they helped to develop. O- ne must hope that further research into her body of work and her life will produce a more concrete insight into her life’s work.

9 Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold, “76 fotos der zeit”, in: foto-auge, Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, Tübingen, 1929, p. 5 57 ! Katalog

Portrait・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938

61 Pied・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

62 Main d‘artiste・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

63 Aisselle・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

64 Nombril・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

65 Paume・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

66 Dos ・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938

67 Oreille・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938

68 69

Détail de trifle・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

71 Le coq est mort・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

72 Nature morte・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

73 Huître・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

74 Trois Praires・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

75 Mandarine・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

76 L‘intérieur d‘un citron・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

77 Fève・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

78 Artichaut・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

79 Salsifis des prés・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

80 Figue de barbarie・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

81 Bouton d‘une rose・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

82 L‘intérieur d‘un oignon I・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

83 Coléoptère sur une fleure・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

84 Cloporte・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

85 Portrait d‘une sauterelle・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

86 Portrait d‘un insecte・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

87 Mille pattes・Vintage gelatin silver print・30 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

88 Lézard・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

89 Éléphant・Vintage gelatin silver print・50 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

90 Chêne-liège・Vintage gelatin silver print・50 x 40 cm・1938- 1940

91 Nez d‘un chat・Vintage gelatin silver print・40 x 30 cm・1938- 1940

92 92

Biografie Es entstehen geometrische-figurale Bilder unter Einfluß der Italiener Giorgio de Chirico und Carlo Carrà. 1920 Erste Bilder mit dem Motiv "Das Paar". Die Wende vom expressionistischen und konstruktivistischen Maler zum "Magischen Realisten" vollzieht sich. Hans Multhaup, Industrieller aus Düsseldorf wird sein erster Sammler. 1923 B. Traven, der seit 1917 in München den "Ziegelbrenner" herausgibt flüchtet mit Räderscheidt's Pass nach Mexiko. 1925 Es entstehen die ersten "Sportbilder" "Der bekleidete Mann und die hundertprozentige 1892 Anton Räderscheidt wird am 11. Oktober als Frau". Beginn der öffentlichen Anerkennung, Sohn des Wilhelm Räderscheidt, Franz Roh weist in seinem Buch Handelsschulrektor in Köln, am Blaubach "Nachexpressionismus" als erster auf geboren. Räderscheidt hin. Hartlaub lädt ihn als einzigen Kölner zur Ausstellung "Neue Sachlichkeit" in 1910-14 Studium an der Kunstgewerbeschule Köln und Mannheim ein. Kunstakademie Düsseldorf bei Eduard Karl Franz Entstehung der "Gruppe progressiver Künstler" von Gebhardt und Prof. Menschen. Seitdem um Hoerle, Seiwert, Jankl Adler, Hans Kontakt zur Rheinischen Avantgarde. Schmitz,Otto Freundlich, Raoul Haussmann, Margarete und Stanislaw Kubicki. Ständige 1913 Das erste Atelier Zusammenkünfte im "Café Monopol" in der Kölner Richard-Wagner-Straße. 1926 Reise nach Südfrankreich. Es entstehen 1914 Entstehen der ersten Bilder mit Aquarelle und Zeichnungen. konstruktivistischen Zügen. Das neue Bildthema heißt "Maler und Modell". 1915-17 Kriegsdienst, unter anderem auch vor Verdun, 1927 Umzug in das neue Atelier in Köln-Bickendorf mit schweren Granatverwundungen. 1928 Bekanntschaft mit Heinrich Maria 1917 Nach Examen als Kunsterzieher im Davringhausen. Es entstehen gegenseitige Realgymnasium Köln-Mühlheim tätig. Portraits. 1918 Heirat mit Marta Hegemann mit ihr hat er zwei 1929 Für die Ausstellung des "Deutschen Söhne, Johann Peter und Karl Anton Künstlerbunds" wird Räderscheidt juriert. Das neue Thema: Straßenmotive mit isolierten 1919 Nach Referendarexamen, Beginn der freien Einzelfiguren. künstlerischen Tätigkeit. Bekanntschaft mit Heinrich Hoerle, Franz 1931 Kein künstlerischer und persönlicher Kontakt Seiwert, Otto Baargeld, Hans Arp und Wilhelm mehr zur Gruppe Progressiver Künstler. Fick.Er gründet zusammen mit Hoerle, Seiwert und Fick die Gruppe "stupid" zu diesem Kreis 1933 Räderscheidt erwägt Deutschland zu verlassen. gehören auch Marta Hegemann und Angelika Er unternimmt eine Reise nach Italien und malt Hoerle. Städtebildervon Rom und Neapel. Er macht die Die Gruppe trifft sich im Atelier von Anton Bekanntschaft mit den Mäzene Rudolf Metzger Räderscheidt am Hildeboldplatz Nr. 9, wo sie und Ilse Metzger-Salberg. Ausstellungen ihrer Arbeiten veranstalten. Der einzige Katalog dieser Zeit "stupid 1" (1920) 1934 Zum Jahresende verläßt Räderscheidt Köln und Als Initiative von Hoerle erscheint die zieht mit seiner neuen Lebensgefährtin, Ilse Holzschnittmappe "Lebendige" die sie den Metzger-Salberg, zunächst nach Berlin an den ermordeten Sozialisten widmen. Motzensee. Diese Mappe trug starke expressionistische und konstruktivistische Züge.Kontakt zum Dada- 1934/35 Emigration nach Frankreich über die Schweiz Kreis um Max Ernst. In der Kölner und England. Herbstausstellung, der "Gesellschaft der Künste" stellen sie nebeneinander aus. Im dadaistischen 1937 Mitglied der "Surindépendants". Er baut sein "bulletin d" werden zwei figürliche Plastiken von Haus "Le Patio" inSanary sur Mer/ Toulon. Räderscheidt angekündigt. Vor Eröffnung der 1938 Seine Arbeiten sind stark farbige Figurenbilder Ausstellung zieht er seine Arbeiten zurück, zeigt (Exilwerk) sie aber dennoch in der Hauptausstellung. Die Holzschnittmappe "Dramentage" erscheint. 95 1939 Er wohnt in Sanary sur Mer und kocht für die Anton Räderscheidt den Schritt in die befreundeten Emigranten Thomas Mann, Lion Abstraktion und schafft bis 1964 ein Feuchtwanger,Alfred Kantorowicz. umfangreiches Werk. 1940 21. Mai die 1. Internierung in "Les Milles", einer 1963 Einzug in das neue Atelierhaus in der ehemaligen Ziegelei bei Toulon, mit Landsbergstraße in Köln. Feuchtwanger, Kantorowicz, Hasenclever. 21. Juni, Walter Hasenclever, Lagernachbar von 1965 Beginn einer Serie von Schwarz-Weiß Bildern Räderscheidt vergiftet sich aus Angst vor den mit der Thematik Straßenszenen, vorrückenden Deutschen. Menschenansammlungen und das immer 22. Juni Waffenstillstandsvertrag durch General wiederkehrende Thema "das Paar". Pétain. Abtransport im "Geisterzug" nach Bayonne zur 1967 Es entstehen die Serien "Selbstportraits", Auslieferung an die Deutschen. Räderscheidt, Handstudien und stark expressive Davringhausen und Kantorowicz gelingt die Temperabilder. Flucht und er kann untertauchen. 1970 Am 8. März stirbt Anton Räderscheidt in Köln. 1942 Nach einer Razzia durch die französische Gendarmerie, bei der Ernst Meyer der Sohn von Ilse Salberg verhaftet und anschließend in ein Deutsches KZ gebracht wird, gelingt Ihnen die Flucht von ihrem Versteck in Barjols (Dep. Le Var) den französischen Seealpen. Ein Metzger aus Barjols versteckt Sie unter seiner Ware und bringt Sie an die Schweizer Grenze, die Räderscheidt gemeinsam mit Ilse Salberg, und deren Tochter Brigitte Metzger illegal übertritt. 1943 Nach erneuter Internierung wurde er durch Fürsprache des Baseler Museumsdirektors Georg Schmidt von einer Ausweisung verschont und bekam eine unbefristete Aufenthaltsgenehmigung als "Privatinternierter" im Hotel "Bären"in Münchenbuchsee. 1945 Ernst Meyer stirbt im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz 1947 Für die Schweizer Kunstsammler, die seine "Französische Malerei" (Postexpressionistisch und Postkubistisch) überaus schätzen, arbeitet Räderscheidt wie besessen um die Arztkosten der an Krebs erkrankten Ilse Salberg zu bezahlen. Nach dem Tod von Ilse Salberg verkauft er sein ganzes schweizerisches Oeuvre an die Galerie Marbach aus Bern und geht mit der Tochter von Ilse Salberg, Brigitte nach Paris. Wieder in Paris stellt er den Diebstahl seiner im Pariser Atelier hinterlassenen Bilder, darunter auch Bilder derNeuen Sachlichkeit, fest und erstattet Anzeige gegen unbekannt. 1948 Bekanntschaft mit Gisèle Ribreau, die er später heiratet. 1949/50 Sein dritter Sohn Vincent wird geboren. Durch Existenzsorgen bedingte Rückkehr nach Köln. Schwieriger Neuanfang. Das Überleben wird durch Portraitauftragsarbeiten, Pferde und Landschaftsbilder ermöglicht. 1956 Nach den schweren Anfangsjahren malt er harmonisch-rythmisierte Pferdebilder. 1957 Beeinflußt durch die Westdeutsche Kunstszene, dem Informel und der "Ecole de Paris" deren Ziel die Abkehr vom Gegenständlichen war, geht 96