Radziwill, Franz

1895 Strohausen - 1983 Wilhelmshaven

1909-11, trains as bricklayer in Bremen. 1913-15, studies architecture at the State Technical College in Bremen. 1913-14, attends evening courses at the Bremen School of Applied Arts. Meets Otto Modersohn and Heinrich Vogeler. 1915-18, war service. Becomes prisoner of war. 1919, studies at the Bremen School of Applied Arts. First woodcuts. Exhibits for first time in Hamburg. 1920-1923, living in Berlin, where he meets Otto Dix, George Grosz and Rudolf Schlichter. Member of the “Freie Sezession” and the “Novembergruppe”. 1921, moves to Dangast. 1925, first one-man exhibition in Oldenburg. 1927, exhibition at Paul Cassirer’s gallery in Berlin. 1927-28, studies in Dresden and works in the studio of Otto Dix. 1929, takes part in the “Neue Sachlichkeit” exhibition in Amsterdam. 1930-33, lives in Holland. 1933, joins the National Socialist Party. Professor at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. 1935, expelled from the National Socialist Party, dismissed from the Academy and forbidden to exhibit. 1937, a number of works are confiscated as “degenerate”. 1936-39, travels to Africa, South America and West Indies as guest of the German Navy. 1939-45 serves as soldier and in war work. Returns to Dangast. 1963/64, Rome Prize of the Deutsche Akademie, studies for a year at the Villa Massimo in Rome. In the 1970s an eye problem becomes progressively worse and he gives up painting. 1982, retrospective at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin. Radziwill dies on 12 August 1983 in Wilhelmshaven.