“A devotee of the Bauhaus idealism warmed by the Mediterranean”

 

Born in Lüneburg in 1910, Jean Leppien studied under Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers at the Bauhaus in Dessau in the late 1920s. After a short period in Berlin, he emigrated to Paris in 1933 when the Nazi's banned abstract art as "degenerate". With the outbreak of war he joined the Foreign Legion, and was later imprisioned in Germany. All of Leppien's work up to 1945 was either lost or destroyed during this period. As a result of his experiences he never returned to Germany; from 1946 he lived and worked in Paris and on the Côte d'Azur, devoting himself entirely to painting. He exhibited regularly at galleries Lydia Conti and Denise René with Hartung, Soulages and Deyrolle, as well as internationally. His work is now widely represented in museums of Modern Art in Europe and America.

This exhibition, "Jean Leppien. From the Bauhaus to the Mediterranean", at the Hamburg Kunsthalle  presents around 40 paintings from every phase of the artist's career. Runs until 22 September 2013.