Fanny Remak part IV: Eugenie Fuchs

From reader Lutz Mauersberger from the Berlin-Mitte Archiv I received a comment on before's Käthe Münzer's "Herculesbrücke" posting. The following account of my initial "research" renders some clues and insight but raises also more questions, it is an ongoing project. Like Fanny Remak, Eugenie Fuchs is largely forgotten today although both were taught (influenced and surrounded) by the leading painters of the period.    

Fuchs, Eugenie Caroline

(25-06-1873 Berlin-Charlottenburg – murdered in Majdanek concentration camp Poland)
German painter 

Wannsee near Berlin by Eugenie Fuchs

and by Max Liebermann who build a villa on its shores and by Lesser Ury. Both were Jewish, impressionists and world famous. Max Liebermann obstructed Ury's career fearing his talent might be greater then his (he burned Ury's wings, like Icarus, when and where ever he could). Comparing these Wannsee impressions it becomes obvious what a fine painter Eugenie Fuchs was.  

Eugenie Fuchs was like Fanny Remak and Käthe Münzer a Jewish landscape and portrait painter and had been a student of Franz Skarbina (1849-1910), Walter Leistikow (1865-1908) and Lovis Corinth (1858-1925). Then she moved to Paris for further studying. Sadly it is not known and unmentioned with whom she studied and in what year she returned to Berlin. In Berlin the house she owned (1933) a 1/4* of by heritage, Schlossplatz 5  was confiscated by the Nazis in 1941. (

* 1/4 by Dr. Gerhard Fuchs a nephew who probably was killed in car accident in the 1930's and 1/2 by Gertrud Fuchs, her sister-in-Law who possibly wasn't Jewish, possibly explaining why their share wasn't seized by the Nazis). Eugenie never lived here, the building probably had been bought by her father as an investment. Her parents lived at Kronprinzen-ufer 22, north of Tierpark and around 1876 he was the Consul of Honduras in Berlin.  

She had fled to Paris in 1933, banned from working by the Nazis, in the same year as Käthe Münzer (1877-1943). In Paris she exhibited with Käthe Münzer (1877-1943), Eugen Spiro(*) (1874-1972), Victor Tischler (1890-1951) and Fred Uhlmann (1901-1985), refugée artists meeting in the Café de Dôme circles.

(*) Eugen Spiro in 1903 married famous actress Tilla Durieux (1880-1971) (above by Franz von Stück). In 1906 they were divorced and in 1910 Durieux married Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer (1871-1926)(above) who exhibited 4 of Fanny's works (I shall discuss those later) along with 30 by French impressionist Camille Pissaro (1830-1903) in 1907. Cassirers world famous Art Gallery was located in Viktoria-strasse in the Tiergarten area and next door to the studio of Max Liebermann.

Schlossplatz nr. 6-1. Kaiser Wilhelm's city palace is opposite (the palace is now being rebuild). On Nr. 3 was Lagergren Conditorei & Café, popular and visited by Scandinavians ("and mainly women") according to an early 1900 Baedeker tourist & city guide. 

Scandinavian immigrant Ryno Edvard Lagergren (b. 1855) married Gertrud Schmidt (b.10-07-1875) in 1901 and owned the Café and Conditorei.  

Georg Leisegang(link) ran a drugstore and photo studio on nr. 4 (but later seems to also occupy the shop/ground level of nr. 5) advertising widely and frequently in Berlin's newspapers (Schlossplatz 4/5). Before Leisegang, at nr. 4, advertised also selling perfumes as can be read in the older lower photograph. The company that evolved after WW2 is still existing (in the US) building specialist medical optical equipment. All was completely destroyed by bombing in 1945. 

Carl Wilhelm Gropius, a Royal Academie painter and member and famous diorama (showcase) builder once owned Schlossplatz nr. 1 on the corner running a studio and painting school (later possibly his son Paul). Eugenie like most victims, was denied posthumously compensation for the robbery of her property in the 1990's. 

After ten years of living in Paris she was seized in 1943 in a “Nacht und Nebel” (night and fog) operation, the preferred and perfected method of the Nazis to get rid of the resistance, dissidents, gypsies, homosexuals and Jews. She was interned in notorious Drancy internment camp North of Paris, transported to Auschwitz and later murdered, aged 70, in Majdanek death camp.

She had been a member of the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen" (VdBK)  1927-1933, exhibited with the VdBk 1927-1930 and with “Das Kind” 1930, 1932-33).

All 5 paintings shown are by Eugenie Fuchs.

Please help me with more examples of paintings, biographical and genealogical data concerning Eugenie Fuchs and her family and Fanny Remak. 

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.   

Käthe Münzer: Found it !!

Käthe Münzer-Neumann

Herculesbrücke 

Berlin  

Regular readers may remember this watercolor by Käthe Münzer I used trying to find Fanny Remak a few postings back. Well, I've found it: Käthe is showing the Herculesbrücke connecting Lützlowplatz to the Tiergarten area crossing the Landwehrkanal. A man made short-cut of river Spree flowing through Berlin.  

She stood or sat, maybe on the terrace of the Albrechthof café on the opposite side of Luetzlow square, and facing West in the direction of nearby Berlin Zoo. 

Here in the Tiergarten Park area, in Viktoria-straße (parallel to Potsdamer-strasse) Max Liebermann and Paul Cassierer ran his famous Kunst-Salon buying from and selling the impressionists and introducing Vincent van  Gogh to the "nouveau-riche". And also Lesser Ury had his studio here, in Lützow-strasse. Later he moved to nearby Nollendorf Platz where his studio he was a neighbor of George Mosson, a painter of mainly flowers and who ran a private painting school. Both men taught at the Painting and Drawing school of the "Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen". Both were in the Gruppe XI, eleven artists opposing the Kaisers choice of "what is art and what is not" in 1892 preceding the Berlin Secession. Ury left us many paintings of the Landwehrkanal and Tiergarten Park. Mosson we'll meet in next posting.      

View on Nollendorfplatz by Lesser Ury 

All was destroyed in WW2. Squares, bridges, buildings. All the trees of the immense park were cut down and used as fire wood after the war ended. Only one of the two grand statues of Hercules, placed in the middle of the bridge, survived and is now in nearby Kölnischer park. The sphinxes with "putti" are lost. 

The statues were re-used from an older Hercules Bridge in the centre that was demolished constructing Berlin's U-bahn. The new bridge replacing an older wooden bridge across the Landwehr Canal. 

----------------------

Max Liebermann and Lesser Ury

in Tiergarten Park

In Tiergarten by Max Lieberman and by Lesser Ury

Both Liebermann, generally considered Germanies greatest impressionist, and Ury painted often in Tiergarten park. Ury, who was like Liebermann Jewish, only later found recognition and is now considered "The" painter of old Berlin. 

Hercules Brücke and Landwehr canal by Lesser Ury

"Tiergarten im Herbst" by Lesser Ury

Ury's career was much hindered by a jealous Liebermann, who was worshipped  like a God even during his lifetime but was not able to accept another great artist so nearby: like the sun he burned the wings of his colleague like an Icarus in public.     

----------------

Konrad von Kardorf (1877-1945)

in Berlin

Luetzlow-Brücke (one bridge downstream of Herkules-Brücke) 

and Viktoria-Straße. 

---------------------

Ernesto Barbero (1887-1937)

Luetzow Brücke 

 -------------------------------

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.     

Gerda Nordling: a touch of royalty

Nordling-Ramberg, Gerda Carolina

(Helsingborg 1875-1942 Frameless)

Graphic designer, arts and craft artist, painter, etcher and printmaker. 

There are only Swedish (Wiki)entries to be found in the Internet referring to artist Gerda Nordling: how injust ! I stumbled over a woodblock print, found her etchings and a painting, became witness of her intriguing family secret and through meeting her was introduced to a Swedish painter she must have known closely and also is only "mentioned" in Swedish: even a greater  injustice. 

    

Gerda was the daughter of John Jönsson (b. 1837) and Eline Andersson (b. 1838). John Jönsson, as was recently revealed, was the illegitimate son of King Oscar I of Sweden (1799-1859) from a liaison with the maid Elsa Christina Trana (1795-1868). 

Gerda's secret grandfather: King Oscar I of Sweden.

The kings son became the city gardener of Helsingborg, well to do, a real estate owner and horse breeder. He also managed to breed 10 siblings. Gerda's brother was painter and graphic artist Gustaf Ramberg (1865-1916) of whom I could not find much details. She had 6 sisters and three brothers. 

Esther, Gerda, Hanna, Elsa, Anna, Gustava and Mia Ramberg

Gerda studied at the Academy in Stockholm and also in Paris. She made several trips in the 1920's to France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. She was at one time a highly regarded artist. Many have said that she was actually better than her brother Gustaf. She was very successful and had several exhibitions, including New York. 

Her work is represented in the National Museum in Stockholm, Malmö Museum, Helsingborg Museum, Gothenburg Museum of Art, the “National Museum for Kunst” in Copenhagen, “Musée des Arts Décoratifs” in Paris and museums in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Copenhagen and Brussels.

 Stockholm, Ladugårdslandsviken.

After her death, a memorial exhibition in Helsingborg was organized. She was married to writer John Nordling, who was head of the women's magazine Idun (publ. 1887-1963). The couple lived alternately in Stockholm and Gamlegård, their residence in Helsingborg.

Catharina Erika "Carin" Lindahl (in 1912) born Sandström and later married Lindström and Nordström. (1886-1959), a Swedish writer (Carin Nordström) painted by Gerda Nordling.  

In the internet, researching her name, I ended up in an auction house that had on offer an impressionist painting that had been in Gerda's possesion once, her name scribbled on the back in 1941. It just took my breath away. More to follow on this Swedish painter soon !

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

All pictures are mouse-clickable to embiggen. 

Bertha Schrader continued: Blaues Wunder !

Bertha Schrader

(Memel 1845 - 1920 Moritzburg/Dresden)  

Painter and woodblock printmaker 

In 1893 the “König Albert Brücke” spanning the Elbe River was opened. A marvel of technical engineering it was the worlds first bridge this length spanning an entire river without a central pillar. It connects the Dresden townships of Blasewitz and Loschwitz. It was named after King Albert of Saxony (1828-1902) but in 1912 it was renamed "Loschwitzer Brucke" and knicknamend lovingly "Blaues Wunder". 

It was Dresdens 5^th bridge across the Elbe river and the only one to survive WWII devastations (and German sabotage) undamaged.  

Bertha Schader will have witnessed its construction, completion and opening. In 1912 a painting showing the bridge in a "recent Exhibition of Women Painters" in Dresden is mentioned (below). Sadly I cannot find any records of it other then this article in the prestigious magazine “The Studio”. The painting is probably lost.

The exhibition was held under the auspices of H.R.H. princess Mathilde, (she appeared earlier in this Blog here*) and was herself also represented with a painting. She was the artistic daughter of Albert’s successor, his brother King Georg of Saxony (1832-1904) but he died after just two years of reign. 
     

Bertha's view on Loschwitzer Bridge, painting owned by reader Katy in America

Bertha Schrader was as most (all?) pioneering women printmakers an accomplished and professional painter first. Until last week her history (she came from Memel in the Baltic) was shrouded in the mist of time. And lost in the total destruction of Dresden. She must have loved this spot because from the few surviving and known paintings by her hand there are 4 she made from this bend in the river upstream from the bridge and the "Altstadt". In the pointillist style of her teacher Paul Baum (1859-1932) in Dresden and also in the style of another of her teachers: Paul Graeb (1842-1892) from Berlin (below). 

Both paintings by Bertha Schrader

Dresden, build over centuries, “Florence on the Elbe”, was destroyed in just two days between 13 and 15 February 1945 as act of barbaric retaliation by civilized nations on a scale the world had never seen before. Disguised as, justified a necessity by bomber command to end a war that already was coming to an end. We today judge. Probably 25.000 citizens died in the firestorms, nobody knows. Exactly. Today Dresden is rebuild to its former glory.

Bertha Schader appears only as foot-notes in the transcendent German "Thieme Becker Künstler Lexikon" and French “Benezit”. She had been a student of Paul Baum, a former Meissen porcelain painter. He had been living and working since 1890 in the Knokke “artist colony” in Belgium and had returned in 1895 to be involved in the Dresden Secession. He himself had been a student of landscape painter Theodor Hagen (1842-1919) in Weimar.

Paul Baum (above), considered Germany’s last impressionist, soon returned to the Low Lands living and working in Sint Anna-ter-Muiden, near Sluis in province Zeeland for almost twenty years (1895- 1914). But eventually he returned to Dresden as a professor in Dresden Art Academy. Comparing Bertha with Paul Baum one can see how close they must have been: paintings by the student and the master are hardly distinguishable. Bertha, I'm sure, stayed with Baum in Sluis (below) and I could see them painting together on the canal.
    

"Canal" (possibly Sluis) by Bertha Schrader and "Sluis" by Paul Baum

(added info, see comments) 

In Sluis Baum also was visited by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) the master from Berlin who on the occasion painted him (below). Max Liebermann (1847-1935) also liked to paint on the Dutch and Belgian coast.

Meeting Dutch painter Theo van Rijsselberghe (1862-1926) and already a (late or post-) follower of the Impressionists Baum later adopted the pointillist technique and colour theories of George Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1963-1935).   

As we shall see in next posting Bertha (above right, probably in the Netherlands, left: Seurat in Honfleur) had besides her colleague and teacher (and friend?) Paul Baum family connections in the Netherlands. As she had in Norway where she also travelled to, to visit and to paint. 

She visited relatives and family on a little island connected with a wooden bridge to the mainland and no doubt has met a couple of very illustrious and famous colleagues (like the one above who happened to live there). All this I learned thanks to Katy, the present owner of this “Blaue Wunder” painting which today is in America. She is distantly, not directly since Bertha stayed unmarried, related to Bertha Schrader and Katy has found me through the Blog. Wonderful ! More to follow soon.

All pictures borrowed from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.