Karl Peter Röhl (12 September 1890 – 25 November 1975) was a German painter and graphic artist.
Life and work
Born in Kiel, Röhl undertook an apprenticeship as a painter upon leaving school in 1906. He then attended at schools of applied arts in Kiel and Berlin between 1907 and 1911 continuing his studies at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School under Walther Klemm and Albin Egger-Lienz. In 1914 he was asked to organize an exhibition by Johannes Molzahn. In the same year, he was drafted into the military and took part in the First World War until 1918.
Röhl returned to Kiel and in 1919 organized the exhibition "Special Exhibition of the Expressionist Working Group Kiel" (Kiel Revolutionary Expressionists) together with Werner Lange and Friedrich Peter Drömmer. Karl Peter Röhl was enrolled as a student at the Bauhaus and went Johannes Itten preliminary lectures during his first semester. He had his own studio which in 1922, provided the venue for Theo van Doesburg’s extra-curricular De Stijl.
At the end of 1919Corinna Isabel Bauer: Bauhaus- und Tessenow-Schülerinnen. Genderaspekte im Spannungsverhältnis von Tradition und Moderne (PDF; 3,4 MB), Kassel 2003, S. 96. or in April 2020 he married his fellow student Alexandra Röhl, whom he immediately deregistered from the Bauhaus because of her household duties. In 1920 their son Tülö (1920–1943) was born. The couple separated in 1925. In the same year, Röhl married his second wife Käthe Möbius, with whom he had a daughter, Marinaua.
He joined the Nazi Party in 1933. After his dismissal from teaching in 1942, Röhl was sent to the front as a soldier and was taken prisoner of war. In 1946 he returned to Germany. Until his death in 1975 he worked as a freelance artist in Kiel and taught at the Goetheschule in Kiel between 1952 and 1955.
Award 1968: Art Prize of the State of Schleswig-Holstein
Exhibitions (selection)
1920 Galerie Goltz, München 1932 "Karl Peter Röhl", oil paintings and watercolors, Erfurt Art Association 1965 "Karl Peter Röhl", paintings, watercolors, drawings, graphics, State Museum of Art and Cultural History, Schloss Gottorf 1975 "Karl Peter Röhl", Galerie Gmurzynska, Zug, Switzerland 1999 "Expressionismus in Thüringen", Gallery at the Fish Market and Angermuseum, Erfurt 2002 "Karl Peter Röhl. From the cosmic vision to the aesthetics of technology", Bauhaus University, Weimar 2002 "Konstruktionen" Paintings 1920–1937, Galerie Berinson, Berlin 2004 "Feininger and Klee move", Bauhaus Museum, Weimar 2004 "Karl Peter Röhl, Awakening 1947–1952", Haus am Horn, Friends of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar 2022: Karl Peter Röhl – Facets of a Bauhaus artist in Kiel, Künstlermuseum Heikendorf
References