Grete Rikko (born Grete Rindskopf; April 13, 1908September 22, 1998) was a German-American artist associated first with the School of Paris and later with abstract expressionism in New York City. She primarily worked in gouache, oil paint, and collage, both on paper and canvas.
Early life Grete Rindskopf was born in Werden, Essen, Germany on 13 April 1908. Her father, Otto Rindskopf (15 July 1863 – 8 September 1934) was originally from Frankfurt. Her mother, Henriette (Lilienthal) Rindskopf (1 December 1871 – 19 March 1942) was originally from Hanover. Rikko had three siblings: her older sister Hilde (later Kramer; 19 December 1900 – ca. April 1942), her older brother Fritz (17 October 1903Fritz Rikko Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 - 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21. – 13 June 1980Fritz Rikko Obituary, The New York Times (14 June 1980).), and her twin brother Hans (13 April 1908 – 21 October 1942.) The Rindkopfs ran a textile factory that manufactured aprons, which employed up to 200 workers.
Grete Rindskopf began studying art at a young age at the Volkswangschule, associated with the Museum Folkwang in Essen. One of the most important collections of modern art in Europe, the Museum Folkwang was first established in Hagen in 1902 before moving to Essen in 1922 after the death of its founder. Here, Rikko was exposed to the works of post-impressionist painters like Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, as well as German expressionists like Emil Nolde, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Career in Europe: Paris and Belgrade (1928-1938) In the late 1920s, Grete Rindskopf—like many young artists of the era—moved to Paris, where she joined the exploding art scene later known as the School of Paris. She enrolled in the Académie Ranson art school in the Montparnasse neighborhood, where she studied under the painter Roger Bissière. She also took lessons from the fauvist André Derain.“Grete Rikko 31 maart - 28 april 1957, Gemeentenmuseum Arnhem Nr 28” (exhibition pamphlet).
In Paris, Grete Rindskopf adopted the nom d’artiste Grete Rikko. She showed her paintings in the major exhibitions of the Parisian art scene such as the Salon d'automne (1931) and the (1931). She also showed paintings in small group exhibits in local galleries such as Galerie Bonaparte and Jeune Europe.“Grete Rikko 31 maart - 28 april 1957, Gemeentenmuseum Arnhem Nr 28” (exhibition pamphlet). In the early 1930s, Rikko also began to exhibit her work in her native Germany. She had solo exhibitions in her hometown at the Galerie Schaumann in 1930 and 1932.Letter from Galerie Schaumann, Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration (MF 540), Reel 53 (Riesenburger, Martin - Rogosinsky, Werner W), Leo Baeck Institute. (Rikko's 1932 exhibition at Galerie Schaumann was a joint presentation with Hein Heckroth.) She also participated in a small group show at the Galerie Hartberg in Berlin in 1933 and in larger exhibitions in Dusseldorf and Bochum.'“Rikko Hanover Gallery 1961: 12 December 1961-16 January 1962” (exhibition pamphlet).
In 1933, Rikko moved from Paris to Belgrade, then the rapidly-growing capital of Yugoslavia. She continued to paint and exhibit her works,“Galerie Schaumann: Grete Rikko New York Gouchen und Collagen die vom 12. Januar bis zum 10. februar 1961 stattfindet” (exhibition pamphlet) including in a solo exhibition at the Franco-Serbian Club (Francusko-Srpskog Kluba) in December 1933.
World War II In 1938, faced with the rise of Nazism, Rikko left Yugoslavia for the United States. Her decision to leave was prescient, as she was the only one of her siblings to evade Nazi persecution.
Only a few months after Rikko landed in New York, her brother Fritz was arrested and interned in the Dachau concentration camp. Following his eventual release from Dachau, he fled to France. There, he was incarcerated at Camp des Milles, a camp where French authorities imprisoned refugees fleeing Germany (which was then an enemy of France). Les Milles was known as the “camp des artistes” due to the many German cultural luminaries imprisoned there, and Fritz and the other classical musicians formed a detainees’ orchestra. (Due to injuries from his torture at Dachau, he was unable to play his violin and sang in the choir instead.) In 1939, Fritz successfully applied for a visa to join his sister in New York, thereby securing release from Les Milles before France under the Vichy regime allied with Nazi Germany and surrendered the prisoners at Les Milles to for deportation to the death camps. He arrived in New York in February 1940.Passenger Manifest for the Excambion 26 February 1940, The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC, USA; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715; RG Title: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; RG: 85.
Rikko’s other two siblings were both killed in the Holocaust. Her older sister, Hilde, initially fled to France in 1938. However, in 1942, when France rounded up foreign Jews on behalf of the Nazis, she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz via the Drancy internment camp. She was killed in April 1942. Rikko’s twin brother, Hans, remained in Germany with their mother. He was deported from their hometown to Poland and killed in the Belzec extermination camp in October 1942.
Safely in the United States, Rikko settled in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. She was initially supported by a scholarship from German Academy of Arts and Sciences in Exile, which funded artists and intellectuals displaced by Nazis to continue their creative work. She also participated in the artistic programming of the Friendship House, a social center for refugees established by the Greater New York Council of Churches. Friendship House provided Rikko with her first opportunity to show her work in the United States when it included her in its exhibit of European artists in exile, held at the 1939 New York World's Fair. This exhibit showed Rikko’s work alongside that of prominent representatives of the European avant-garde such as Herbert Bayer and Amédée Ozenfant. This exhibition, called “New Americans,” was intended as a pendant to the larger exhibition called “American Art Today” in the adjacent gallery, which showcased artwork recently commissioned by the Works Progress Administration.Undated Press Release, “New Americans Exhibition at the New York World’s Fair,” Kate Steinitz papers, circa 1910-2002, Box 3, Folder 9, Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
During her first years in the United States, Rikko also exhibited her work at Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where her brother had been hired as a professor of music.
As a member of the School of Paris, Rikko had been a figurative painter. Now, watching from afar as war and genocide devastated the people and places she had once painted, Rikko turned her back on figuration. She stopped painting portraits and landscapes influenced by German expressionism and French impressionism and developed a wholly new style in which she painted and collaged angular forms against backgrounds of saturated color. Although at first glance these works appeared to be pure abstraction, Rikko insisted that they carried legible meaning. Some critics agreed, including one who described Rikko’s cryptic shapes as “semi-abstractions of refugee camps” and another who wrote “the subject is still discernable even though it has been fully reduced to a symbol.”
Rikko became a U.S. citizen in 1944, at which point she legally changed her last name from Rindskopf to Rikko.Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.
New York career (1950s-1960s) Rikko’s artistic career peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, coinciding with the height of abstract-expressionism. It was during these decades that Rikko, aged in her 40s and 50s, held most of her solo exhibitions and attracted the most critical attention.
A key point in Rikko’s New York career came in 1954, when two of her works were included in a juried exhibit organized by the Village Art Center at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Village Art Center sought to “discover and give opportunity to… unrecognized artists whose work has genuine merit,” and Rikko was selected by a jury of art world luminaries including Dorothy Canning Miller and Grace M. Mayer, both prominent curators at the Museum of Modern Art and William Zorach, a well-known sculptor. Rikko was chosen for the exhibit alongside Beauford Delaney and other New York artists who were beginning to explore abstract-expressionism.The Village Art Center Eleven Year Retrospective Exhibition of Prizewinners Work at the Whitney Museum of American Art June 2 through June 15, 1954
Thanks to a reference from the gallerist Betty Parsons, Rikko received a series of solo exhibitions at the Bodley Gallery, located first at 223 East 60th Street and later at 787 Madison Avenue.Letter from Grete Rikko to Betty Parsons, Betty Parsons Gallery Records and Personal Papers, 1916-1991, Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Box 23, Folder 66-68. The Bodley Gallery, which opened around 1950 and remained in operation until 1982, curated intimate solo exhibitions of modern and contemporary artists, including luminaries like Max Ernst, Victor Brauner, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, and Andy Warhol, as well as lesser-known artists like Rikko. Rikko’s own exhibitions, in 1959,“Grete Rikko: Paintings; February 27 – March 7, 1959; Bodley Gallery” (exhibition pamphlet). 1960,“Grete Rikko: Recent Paintings and Collages; February 8th through 20th, 1960; Bodley Gallery” (exhibition pamphlet). and 1967“Grete Rikko: Oil and Collage; January 31st through February 11th, 1967; Bodley Gallery” (exhibition pamphlet). were visited by critics from Art News and the New York Times, among others.
In Europe, Rikko attracted new attention as an American artist. She received the most recognition in the Netherlands, where she held exhibitions in the Hague (1954), Amsterdam (1956), Arnhem (1957), and Rotterdam (1958 and 1960).'“Rikko Hanover Gallery 1961: 12 December 1961-16 January 1962” (exhibition pamphlet). These included the only museum exhibition in her career, a presentation of 36 recent works at the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem (now known as Museum Arnhem) in 1957.“Grete Rikko 31 maart - 28 april 1957, Gemeentenmuseum Arnhem Nr 28” (exhibition pamphlet).
The Netherlands also gave Rikko her only public art commission. In 1955 Rikko and the British sculptor Henry Moore were both hired to decorate a new extension to the . The Bouwcentrum (Dutch for “Building Center”) first opened in 1949 as a hall for exhibitions on modern building techniques, intended to inform the postwar reconstruction of the Netherlands. By 1954, the center had already outgrown its original space and the original architect, Joost Boks, was asked to add a new wing. Moore designed a relief in brick for the exterior of the new wing. Rikko painted an enormous abstract mural (four meters high and 16 meters long) in the interior.“Galerie Schaumann: Grete Rikko New York Gouchen und Collagen die vom 12. Januar bis zum 10. februar 1961 stattfindet” (exhibition pamphlet) (Although the original Bouwcentrum still stands at Kruisplein 15, the 1955 extension was demolished in 2010 and replaced by an office building. Moore’s relief was preserved, but Rikko’s mural apparently was not.)