Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch

 

Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch, Die Erstarrung (The Congealment), 1928

Due to the profession of his father, an officer, Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch (1889-1937) experienced in his childhood many relocations, such as to Krakow and Prague. In 1914 his father died in the war. In 1916, Reyl-Hanisch served in the artillery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but, because of his bad lung condition, was exempted from further military service. In 1917 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but soon changed to the Vienna School of Arts where he studied under Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann.

 Herbert Reyl-Hanisch, Birth of Man, 1930

After his graduation in 1920 he worked as a freelance artist. In 1923 he married Marianne Nohl. In the same year he participated in an exhibition of the Vienna Secession. Because of his good social contacts Reyl-Hanisch received numerous portrait commissions and was also active as a book illustrator. In the late twenties Reyl-Hanisch joined the artist group "Old World" and became a close friend of the painter Franz Sedlacek, whose wife Maria he portrayed in 1930. Like Sedlacek's work, Reyl-Hanisch's style can be located somewhere between New Objectivity and Magic Realism. The next painting demonstrates that he was also aware of the social problems and continous political unrest of that time. It shows a street fight between Nazis and Socialists which took place in Schwechat on April 14th, 1932:

 Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch, Pursuit, 1932

In the 1930s his rising popularity was followed by exhibitions in Germany and Italy. In 1934, he moved with his wife to Bregenz. In 1936, he was represented with a portrait of his nephew Bernhard Matt ("The Youth Champion" ) at the Olympia exhibition in Berlin. In 1937, Reyl-Hanisch died of a severe hemorrhage.

Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch, Portrait of the Mother, c. 1930

More of his works are here on my Flickr page.

Hans Feibusch

Hans Feibusch (1898-1998) was born to Jewish parents in Frankfurt under the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He served with the German Army in Russia during the First World War and, after a false start in medicine, began his art studies under Carl Hofer in Berlin. Gaining the Rome prize, he went to Italy, and then studies in Paris with Andre Lhote. You can see the influence of Carl Hofer in this magnificent painting:

Hans Feibusch, Trommler (Drummer), 1934 

In 1930, he received the German Grand State Prize for painting. With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, Feibusch’s status as a Jewish artist ensured that his work was outlawed. Later that year he fled to Britain. In 1937, his work was banned and destroyed by the Nazis. He became a British citizen in 1938, just a year after his work had been included in the Degenerate Art Exhibition. England was at first parsimonious with honours and critical recognition. Despite the enthusiasm for his work shown by men as perceptive as Maxwell Fry and Walter Hussey, it was not until 1997 that the Tate Gallery acquired a canvas, this one: 

 Hans Feibusch, "1939", 1939

This painting relates to Feibusch’s experience as a soldier fighting on the Russian front from 1916-18. Feibusch had a brother and in 1929 he went skiing. Lutz was tragically killed in an avalanche and Feibusch had to meet the body at the train station. This experience was also much in mind when he painted 1939 his premonition of what was to come.

  Hans Feibusch, Monkeys, 1946

Soon after the second world war, Feibusch established himself as a mural painter and the commissions came flooding in. He was successful not only in ancient buildings, such as St Ethelburga's, in the City of London, where his murals were damaged in the 1993 IRA bombing, but also in modern churches where he worked closely with the architects. His murals in the Civic Centre at Newport, Monmouthshire, are one of the most ambitious 20th century decorative cycles in Britain. You can see them here.

 Hans Feibusch, Newport Civic Centre Mural, The Building of the George Street Bridge, detail, 1960-64

In 1986, Feibusch had a major retrospective exhibition in Frankfurt and in  1967 he had been awarded the German Order of Merit (first class), and in 1989 received the Grand Cross of Merit. He was in his last years the sole survivor of those whose work had been banned in the notorious Degenerate Art Exhibition. Hans Feibusch eventually converted to Christianity, but in 1992 he formally left the Church of England and shortly before his death said: "I am just a very tired old Jew." 

You can visit Hans Feibusch's official site here.

Aftermath

Karl Hofer, Ruinennacht (Night of Ruins), 1947

Georg Heym, Die Stadt (1911)

Sehr weit ist diese Nacht. Und Wolkenschein
Zerreißet vor des Mondes Untergang.
Und tausend Fenster stehn die Nacht entlang
Und blinzeln mit den Lidern, rot und klein.

Wie Aderwerk gehn Straßen durch die Stadt,
Unzählig Menschen schwemmen aus und ein.
Und ewig stumpfer Ton von stumpfem Sein
Eintönig kommt heraus in Stille matt.

Gebären, Tod, gewirktes Einerlei,
Lallen der Wehen, langer Sterbeschrei,
Im blinden Wechsel geht es dumpf vorbei.

Und Schein und Feuer, Fackeln rot und Brand,
Die drohn im Weiten mit gezückter Hand
Und scheinen hoch von dunkler Wolkenwand.

Bernhard Klein, Berlin 1943 (Burning City), 1947

Georg Heym, The War (1911, last two stanzas)

An important city, chocked in yellow glow,
jumped without a whisper to the depths below,
while he stands, a giant, over glowing urns,
wild, in bloody heavens, thrice his torch he turns 

over stormstrung clouds reflecting fiery brands,
to the deadly dark of frigid desert sands,
down he pours the fires, withering the night,
phosphorus and brimstone on Gomorrha bright.

Adrian Ghenie, Jumping off the Reichstag, 2008 


Georg Heym, Der Krieg (1911, last two stanzas)

Eine große Stadt versank in gelbem Rauch,
Warf sich lautlos in des Abgrunds Bauch.
Aber riesig über glühnden Trümmern steht
Der in wilde Himmel dreimal seine Fackel dreht,

Über sturmzerfetzter Wolken Widerschein,
In des toten Dunkels kalten Wüstenein,
Daß er mit dem Brande weit die Nacht verdorr,
Pech und Feuer träufet unten auf Gomorrh. 

 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Book Cover for Georg Heym's "Umbra Vitae", 1924

 

Walter Gramatté

 Walter Gramatté, Self-Portrait with Red Moon, 1926

Walter Gramatté was born 1897 in Berlin. He served in the German army during World War I but was released from military duty in 1915 due to poor health. In the same year he enrolled at the Königliche Kunstschule des Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin and became a friend of Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

Walter Gramatté, Funeral, 1917

In the 1920s, Gramatté produced many oil paintings and watercolors but he was particularly interested in experimenting with etchings, woodcuts, lithographs and drypoints. Most of his work is portraiture and he created 200 self-portraits and 120 studies of his wife, Sonia. 

 Walter Gramatté, The Man on the Skid, 1920

Sonia married again after Gramatté's death, was then named Sophie Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté and lived in Canada as a renowned musician. To remember her and her former husband Walter Gramatté The Eckhardt-Gramatté-Foundation was established in Winnipeg, Canada (you can see more of his works there).

Walter Gramatté, Portrait Rosa Schapire, 1920

Tragically, Walter Gramatté suffered from continuous poor health and died in 1929 at the age of thirty-two. In 1932, a memorial exhibition opened at the Art Association in Hamburg and then travelled to nine other cities in Germany before it was closed prematurely by the Nazis because they considered his work "degenerate". A special exhibition of his paintings with the title Rediscovered: Walter Gramatté 1897-1929 took place in Hamburg's Ernst Barlach Haus in 2009. You can see more of his work in my Flickr set.

Arthur Segal

Arthur Segal (1875-1944) was born to jewish parents in Jassy, Romania. In 1892 Segal studies at the Academy of Art in Berlin, taking master classes with Eugen Bracht. Two years later he continues his studies at the Académie Julien in Paris, attending Ludwig Schmid-Reutte and Friedrich Fehr’s painting school in Munich one year later, after which he takes up studies with Carl von Marr at the Academy of Art in Munich, where he is active as a freelancer from 1899 before moving to Berlin in 1904 and taking part in the 1909 and 1913 exhibitions of the Berliner Secession. His first woodcuts are published in Herwarth Walden’s Der Sturm in 1911, followed a year later by an exhibition in Walden’s eponymous art gallery. 

Arthur Segal, Der Sündenfall (Fall of Man), 1920

In 1914 he emigrates to Ascona and becomes acquainted with Hans Arp, Alexei von Jawlensky, Hugo Ball, and Leonhard Frank. In 1916 he has an exhibition at the Cabaret Voltaire of the Zurich Dadaists, returning in 1920 to Berlin where he opens his own painting school, with Nikolaus Braun and Lou Albert-Lasard among his students. He is a member of the Novembergruppe (November Group), being on its board of directors for some time and repeatedly participating in the group’s exhibitions from 1921 to 1931. His Berlin studio is the place of regular meetings of Adolf Behne, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters, and George Grosz. Together with Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Käthe Kollwitz among others he is active in the trade unions’ campaign "For an eight-hour-day". In 1925 he is the co-publisher with Nikolaus Braun of the treatise "Lichtprobleme der Bildenden Kunst" (On the Problem of Light in the Fine Arts). In 1933 he emigrates to Mallorca and three years later to London where he opens a painting school. In 1944 he dies of heart failure during a bombing raid of the German Luftwaffe.

Nikolaus Braun

Nikolaus Braun (Miklos Bela) was a German/Hungarian artist and sculptor who was born in 1900. In 1920 he became a student of Arthur Segal at his painting studio in Berlin. Segal and Braun were members of the Novembergruppe (November Group) and the studio of Segal was a regular meeting place for artists like Adolf Behne, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters and George Grosz. Braun exhibited with the November Group from 1923 on. Both, Segal and Braun were also associated with Der Sturm (The Storm) and the December Gallery.

 Nikolaus Braun, Berlin street scene, 1921

In 1924, Braun participated in the First German Art Exhibition in Moscow. In 1925, Braun and Segal published a treatise entitled, “Lichtprobleme der Bildenden Kunst” (On the Problem of Light in the Fine Arts). This volume was an exploration of the meaning of light and form in their work. This book is extremely rare and only four copies are known to be in libraries worldwide. Both , teacher and student were strongly influenced by Viking Eggeling’s early film experiments. In 1924, Braun and Segal, along with Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo Peri, Erno Kallai and Alfred Kemeny were in attendance at Eggeling’s presentation of the Diagonal Symphony. In 1938 Braun emigrated to Budapest and later, in 1949, he moved to the United States. He died in New York in 1950.

Otto Dix - Street Fight

Otto Dix, Street Fight, 1927

This painting was destroyed in 1945. There is an interesting collection of "Lost Art" here. You can see more paintings by Otto Dix here on my Flickr page.

August Sander The Painter Otto Dix and his Wife Martha, 1925