The Artistic Journey of Grete Rikko
Born Grete Rindskopf, this artist was born in Werden, Essen, Germany. Her early training took place at the Volkswangschule, which was associated with the Museum Folkwang in Essen. During her formative years in Europe, she moved to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Ranson art school in the Montparnasse neighborhood, where she studied under Roger Bissière and took lessons from André Derain. In the early 1930s, she exhibited in Germany and later moved to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1933, where she held a solo exhibition at the Franco-Serbian Club.
Faced with the rise of Nazism in 1938, she left Yugoslavia for the United States, eventually settling in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Her work underwent a stylistic evolution; while she was initially a figurative painter, she later transitioned to a style featuring angular forms against backgrounds of saturated color, utilizing gouache, oil paint, and collage on both paper and canvas.
Exhibitions and Recognition
Rikko’s career reached a peak during the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. She was selected for an exhibit at the Village Art Center at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1954. Following a reference from Betty Parsons, she held several solo exhibitions at the Bodley Gallery, including shows in 1959, 1960, and 1967. Her work also gained recognition in the Netherlands, where she exhibited in several cities and held a museum exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem in 1957. In 1955, she was commissioned to paint a large abstract mural for the Bouwcentrum Rotterdam.
Her works are held in several public collections, including:
