RICHTER, HANS. (1888-1976). German-American Dada painter, graphic artist, avant-garde film producer and art historian. Signed etching. (“Hans Richter”). 1p. 8vo. (Image: 5½” x 6”, Frame: 13½” x 14”.) N.p., 1912 (?). An original signed etching entitled “Skat” signed and dated 1912 (?) beneath the image of three men playing the card game Skat.

Skat is a 3-player card game, extremely popular in Germany, played at regular Skatrunden (“Skat rounds”) or Skatabende (“Skat evenings”), requiring a pack of 32 German or French cards. Annual competitions between clubs and leagues lead up to the German Skat championship.

Hans Richter, born in Berlin, Germany, became one of the principal figures of avant-garde art in the 1910s and 1920s. As an art historian and pioneer of Surrealism and Dadaism (sometimes called an art movement but more accurately an anti-art movement), he was a major influence on artists in many disciplines. He is now best known for his groundbreaking surrealistic films Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and 8x8: A Chess Sonata in Eight Movements (1957). Richter immigrated to New York City in 1940 at age 52, and in 1943 became a professor and the director of the Institute of Film Techniques at New York’s City College, a position he held for 13 years. In 1956, Richter turned to teaching documentary filmmaking, and in 1962, he retired and moved to Locarno, Switzerland. Formerly in the collection of journalist Léo Sauvage, Richter’s long-time friend. For 25 years, Léo Sauvage, the NY foreign correspondent for the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, reported under the byline “New York: Léo Sauvage” to French readers on U.S. news, political and cultural events, reviewed plays and interviewed celebrities in all fields. He was also the author of nine books, the best-known of which are The Oswald Affair (1966), about the JFK assassination, and L’Affaire Lumière (1985), about Georges Méliès and the origins of cinema.

Slight damage, resulting in a small hole at the image’s left edge; not examined out of the frame.