(b Munich, 26 Jan 1908). Painter and architect, son of (1) Willi Geiger. He first studied architecture under the neo-classicist Eduard Pfeiffer (1889–1929) at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Munich (1926–9). He served an apprenticeship as a mason from 1930 to 1932, which was followed by a period of study at the Staatsbauschule in Munich (1933–5). In 1940 Geiger was called up for military service. Self-taught, he started to paint in the Ukraine and in Greece, where he discovered the differing qualities of light and colour that later became the sole subject-matter of his art. Although Geiger resumed work as an architect at the end of World War II, he took part in some of the first post-war exhibitions, including Extreme Kunst in the Schaezlerpalais in Augsburg, exhibiting such works as Surreal Landscape (Dream Picture with Abstract Forms) (1947; see 1985 exh. cat., p. 31). In the wake of these exhibitions and encouraged by John Anthony Thwaites, the British consul in Munich, a group of artists formed the ZEN 49 group in 1949 with the object of promoting abstract art, although with no attendant ideological programme. Among the founder-members were Geiger, Willi Baumeister, Fritz Winter, Rolf Cavael (b 1898), Gerhard Fietz (b 1910), Willi Hempel (1905–?1985) and Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff (later Matschinsky-Denninghoff). At that time Geiger was working in complete isolation on abstract trapeziform canvases, for example E 53 (1948; Hagen, Osthaus Mus.).

Part of the Geiger family

• Geiger, Rupprecht
  • Zen 49