561 - Karl Peter Röhl (1890, Kiel – 1975)

Karl Peter Röhl (1890, Kiel – 1975) “Bl. 7” Watercolor and ink on chamois-colored drawing paper, firmly mounted on a backing. 1926. Approx. 65 x 50 cm. Signed, dated, and titled lower right. Sheet 7 from the “Große Frankfurter Folge” (Great Frankfurt Series). We thank the Karl Peter Röhl Estate for their assistance in cataloging this work. • Röhl was a Bauhaus member from the very beginning and created the first Bauhaus logo, the “Sternenmännchen,” in 1919 • In 1922, Theo van Doesburg held his De Stijl course in his Weimar studio—one of the most influential impulses for constructive modernism in Germany • The two works on paper span the spectrum from the austere De Stijl composition of 1922 to the dynamic, colorful formal language of 1926 Karl Peter Röhl was already a trained painter when he enrolled in the newly founded State Bauhaus in Weimar in April 1919. After completing an apprenticeship, he attended the schools of applied arts in Kiel and Berlin and subsequently studied at the Grand Ducal Saxon Art School in Weimar. At the Bauhaus, he was assigned his own studio and attended Johannes Itten’s preparatory course during his first semester. He soon became one of the students who played a decisive role in shaping the image of the young school: as early as 1919, Röhl designed the first Bauhaus logo, the so-called “little star man,” which, as the founding emblem, remains associated to this day with the institution’s expressive early years. The real turning point in his work came when the Dutch painter and theorist Theo van Doesburg arrived in Weimar in 1921 to introduce the ideas of De Stijl to the Bauhaus. Since he was barred from teaching at the school, van Doesburg held his De Stijl course in Röhl’s studio in 1922—a course that became a gathering place for all those seeking a clear, constructive formal language. That same year, Röhl attended the Congress of Constructivists and Dadaists in Weimar, which brought together artists such as El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Hans Arp, and Kurt Schwitters. He also shared a close friendship with Walter Dexel. The expressive visual worlds of the early Bauhaus years now gave way to austere compositions of horizontal and vertical lines and black planes. This 1922 drawing exemplifies this new beginning with great consistency: narrow beams and double lines span an open framework across the paper, at the center of which a single black rectangle anchors the structure. Balance here arises not through symmetry, but through the precisely calibrated relationship of the elements to one another. After his time at the Bauhaus, Röhl continued his studies as a master student under Walther Klemm at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar. In 1926, he took over as director of the preparatory class at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main—a role in which he passed on the lessons of Bauhaus pedagogy until 1942. During these years, he continued to develop his geometric language independently. In the work created in 1926 and designated by Röhl as “Bl. 7,” the forms gain mass and dynamism: Bright red circular discs are joined by diagonal cross-shapes, a constellation reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist compositions and Lissitzky’s visual language. These two works thus trace the path of an artist who was active at the Bauhaus from its very inception, whose studio served as a cradle for one of Modernism’s most influential movements, and who, in the years that followed, shaped the principles of constructive abstraction into a visual language all his own. Exhibition: Karl Peter Röhl. Bauhaus Weimar, Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne 1975, cat. no. 17, ill. p. 38; Karl Peter Röhl. Bauhaus Years. Exhibition Marking the 100th Anniversary of His Birth, Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne 1990, p. 86, ill. p. 87. Provenance: Estate of the artist; Private collection, Switzerland. Taxation: subject to regular taxation (VAT: Regular Taxation).