Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She was a key figure in advising Solomon R. Guggenheim to collect abstract art, a collection that would later form the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection. She was also responsible for selecting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the current Guggenheim museum, which is now known as a modernist icon in New York City.
Early life and education
Hilla von Rebay was born into a German aristocratic family in Strasbourg, Alsace–Lorraine, then part of the German Empire. She was the second child of Baron Franz Josef Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, an officer in the Prussian Army, and his wife, Antonie von Eicken. She showed an early aptitude for art and she studied at the Cologne Kunstgewerbeschule during the academic year 1908/09. She then attended the Académie Julian in Paris from 1909 until 1910, where she received traditional training in landscape, portraiture, genre and history painting. Her portraiture skills supported her before she turned to more abstract art. Under the influence of the German Jugendstil painter Fritz Erler, Rebay moved to Munich in 1910 where she lived until 1911. Here, she began to develop her interest in modern art.
Career in the United States
In January 1927, Rebay emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City.
In June 1943, Rebay wrote to the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright to commission a "museum-temple" to house the growing collection. The new museum opened on October 21, 1959, as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
When the museum was completed, Rebay was not invited for the opening. She never set foot in the museum she helped create. Embittered, Rebay retreated from public life and spent her final years at her estate in Westport, Connecticut.
After her death in 1967, she was buried according to her wishes in her family grave in Teningen, Germany.
Legacy and honors
thumb|Gravestone in [[Teningen, Germany]]
Following Rebay's death in 1967, part of her extensive personal collection of art was given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as the Hilla Rebay Collection, which includes works by artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Albert Gleizes and Kurt Schwitters. It operates a museum in her parents' house, which they purchased in 1919 and which she donated to Teningen after their deaths, with the request that it be used for a good purpose.
- 2004, the German documentary filmmaker Sigrid Faltin made the film The Guggenheim and the Baroness: The Story of Hilla Rebay.
- In 2005, a companion book Die Baroness und das Guggenheim Hilla von Rebay – Eine Deutsche Künstlerin in New York was published.
- In 2005, nearly forty years after her death, the Guggenheim Museum honored Rebay with a special exhibition dedicated to her role in the foundation and her collection, entitled Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim (May 20 – August 10, 2005). It opened in New York and traveled to Europe.
- The Hilla von Rebay Foundation was established in her name at the Guggenheim Museum to promote non-objective art.
- The Hilla Rebay International Fellowship was founded in 2001 to offer a current graduate student the opportunity to undertake a paid rotating position at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.
- In 2014, Rebay was depicted in Bauer, a play about the life and art of Rudolf Bauer and his relationship with Rebay. The play had its world premiere at San Francisco Playhouse.
- In 2017, a selection of Rebay's work was on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the Visionaries: Creating a Modern Guggenheim exhibition.