Franz Radziwill, “The Street (Die Strasse)”, 1928, Oil on Canvas
Franz Radziwill studied architecture at the “Höhere Technische Staatslehranstalt” in Bremen until 1915 and also attended evening classes in figure drawing at the “Kunstgewerbeschule”. He was introduced to artist circles in Fischerhude and Worpswede by his teacher Karl Schwally. There Franz Radziwill met Bernhard Hoetger, Otto Modersohn, Heinrich Vogeler and Clara Rilke-Westhoff. He also studied works by Van Gogh, Cézanne and Chagall.
After returning from a British prisoner-of-war camp in 1919 Radziwill settled in Berlin for a couple of years where he joined the “Freie Secession” and the “Novembergruppe”. He moved to Dangast on the North Sea in 1923, and had his first one-man exhibition in Oldenburg two years later, in 1925. In the same year, Franz Radziwill increasingly abandoned the Expressionist style of his early work. His friend and fellow artist Otto Dix introduced him to the “Neue Sachlichkeit” circles; and Radziwill worked together with Dix in his studio in Dresden until 1928.
He participated in the large “Neue Sachlichkeit” exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1929. Radziwill was much praised when he took over Paul Klee’s chair at the Düsseldorf Akademie in 1933. The Nazis forced him to resign two years later, however, called his artwork degenerate and banned him from practising his profession. After the second war he returned to his house in Dangast, where he began painting religious subjects.
Franz Radziwill was awarded the Villa-Massimo Prize in 1963 and spent some time in Rome. Around the mid 1960s Franz Radziwill began changing his older works by painting over them. Most recently, his works have been on show at the Kunsthalle Emden in 1995 and in the exhibition “Der Geist der Romantik in der deutschen Kunst” at the Haus der Kunst in Munich.