Rudolph Charles von Ripper

About

Rudolph Charles von Ripper (1905–1960) was an Austrian-born American surrealist painter, illustrator, soldier, and OSS agent known for his anti-fascist works and wartime art. Born into nobility as the son of an Austrian baron, he led an adventurous early life, joining the French Foreign Legion at age 19 where he was wounded in the Great Syrian Revolt, deserting to travel through Berlin, Shanghai as a filmmaker, and Majorca where he created anti-fascist drawings for the German resistance around 1933. A self-taught artist influenced by George Grosz, he exhibited sensationally in London in 1935, published etchings like 'Ecrasez l’infame' in 1938, and fled to New York in 1938, settling in Greenwich Village and later Connecticut.

Surrealism with anti-fascist and narrative themes