Richard Koppe

Why this artist matters now

Richard Koppe was an American painter whose geometric abstractions emerged from his training at the New Bauhaus in Chicago during the late 1930s. Working primarily in oil and developing a vocabulary of interlocking planes and muted color fields, he became a central figure in translating European modernism to the American midwest. His paintings have been shown at MoMA and the Whitney, and he led the Department of Visual Design at the Institute of Design in Chicago from the 1940s through 1963. Koppe's work bridges constructivism and American abstraction, emphasizing structure and material restraint over gesture.

Source: Aic · Trust score: 95% · Updated 1mo ago