The Quays - Carl Rabus (1898-1983)

An oil on canvas measuring 55X46 cm representing a canal, signed lower left and dated 1928 by Carl Rabus (1898-1983)

Carl Johann Rabus (May 30, 1898 - July 28, 1983) was a German expressionist artist and painter who was persecuted by the Nazis.

Rabus was born in Kempten and studied under Angelo Jank at the Munich Academy. After various art exhibitions organized by Hans Goltz in Munich and by Der Sturm in Berlin, Rabus worked as a book and art illustrator in Berlin from 1923 to 1927. His works were published by several magazines like Eulenspiegel, Der Orchideengarten and Jugend. With his contemporaries such as Jacob Steinhardt, Richard Janthur, Heinrich Richter-Berlin and Conrad Felixmüller, Rabus revived the techniques of woodcut close to the circles of artists of the Die Brücke movements or German expressionism. Nazi power in Germany in 1933, Rabus moved to Vienna, Austria, where he met his future wife, Jewish photographer Erna Adler, but they soon had to leave the country due to impending annexation to the Third Reich. fled to Brussels but in 1940 they were arrested in Belgium after the invasion of the German army. Erna Adler was freed but Rabus was incarcerated in the Saint-Cyprien detention camp in the south of France. In 1941, he was able to escape from the camp and he returned to Brussels. There he was arrested again in 1943 on an accusation by Rassenschande. Rabus was expelled and had to spend some time in prison in Vienna. In 1944 he married Erna Adler and after the war they lived in Essen, Munich and Brussels. Eventually they settled in Murnau am Staffelsee in 1974 where Carl Rabus died on July 28, 1983.