MUNICH, GERMANY.-Museum Villa Stuck presents Stunde 0 / Zero Hour Rupprecht Geiger and Hilla von Rebay, on view through January 15, 2006. The exhibition STUNDE 0 (ZERO HOUR). Rupprecht Geiger and Hilla von Rebay documents the close relationship between the Munich painter Rupprecht Geiger (b. 1908 in Munich) and the artist Hilla von Rebay (1890-1967) shortly after World War II. Rebay was the founding director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (later the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York) and a passionate supporter of non-objective art.

During the formation of the Munich-based artists' group ZEN 49, Hilla von Rebay maintained a close relationship with its members, including Rupprecht Geiger. As an honorary member of ZEN 49, she exhibited several paintings in the first exhibition of the group at the Central Art Collecting Point in Munich in 1950. The cabinet exhibition STUNDE 0 (ZERO HOUR). Rupprecht Geiger and Hilla von Rebay in the Museum Villa Stuck brings together once again the works shown by Geiger and Rebay in this groundbreaking exhibition. In addition, a later, undated work entitled Das Farberlebnis (The Colour Experience), describes a walk by Rupprecht Geiger among the rubble in the streets of Munich after the War. In both text and colour, Geiger tells of a radiant lipstick contained in a Care Package which he received from Hilla von Rebay.

Rupprecht Geiger - son of the well-known painter and student of Franz von Stuck, Willi Geiger - studied architecture from 1926 to 1935 in Munich, first at the School of Applied Arts and later at the State College of Architecture. From 1936 to 1940 he worked for various Munich architecture firms. From 1940, while on the eastern front in Poland and Russia, he began his autodidactic study of painting. In the years 1943 and 1944 he was assigned as a war artist in the Ukraine and in Greece. In 1949 he was a founding member of the Gruppe der "Gegenstandslosen" süddeutscher Maler (the Group of 'Non-Objective' South-German Painters) together with Willi Baumeister, Rolf Cavael, Gerhard Fietz, Willy Hempel, Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff (later Matschinsky-Denninghoff) and Fritz Winter. At the suggestion of Geiger, the group renamed itself ZEN 49. From 1965 to 1976 he was Professor of painting at the State Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf. He became well-known through his continuous work with the colour red, beginning in the 1950s. During his long career, Geiger has paricipated in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Rupprecht Geiger lives and works in Munich.