RUDOLF ENGLERT

Biography

Rudolf Englert (1921-1989) has been developing his formal style since the start of the 1960s. This was in parallel to other similar movements, such as ZERO, but independently of them. He produced systematically worked sequences of work in close succession, primarily on paper. His early cycles resonated with a wider public through exhibitions in leading galleries, including the Kunsthalle Kiel in 1962. Art critics, such as Will Grohmann in 1964, highlighted Englert’s unique position within avantgarde movements.

In the 1970s, his compositions became more complex and more pictorial in their arrangement. The scriptual character and the echoes of musical notations, which emerged in his earlier work, become more pronounced. Englert’s approach manifested a fundamentally different approach compared to other strategies for incorporating script and writing in images. As a result, the works become larger, the compositions more complex. He produces groups, rich rhythm, light-dark gradations, everything is designed compositionally. The use of colour, as in the Villa Romana works of 1976 and the later large canvases, gives rise to further forms of expression in relation to the graphic form. All in all, Englert advanced new freedoms in drawing with his instrumentation. Englert is also regarded as having contributed to an advanced understanding of drawing.