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.   

Helene Mass (Maß), printmaker (IV)

Between 1875 and 1900 Berlin’s population (like those of London and Paris) roughly doubled. From 1 to 2 million (today 3,5 million). Around 1880 the Königliche Kunst und Gewerbe Schule was established after British Arts and Craft schools) and soon after a dozen more followed in most of Germany’s cities. In this Institution between 1890-1893 Walter Leistikow taught and  among them was Hélène Maß.   

Most of the world’ s todays great cities developed were great rivers meet the sea. There are exceptions: Paris, great river no sea. Berlin has neither sea nor Great River and rivers Spree and Havel, confluences of river Elbe are hardly navigable but creating a lovely lake district nearby. 

It was here, on the borders of the Wannsee in 1910 Max Liebermann, Germany’s great impressionist painter build his Villa Liebermann and retreated from the world, like Monet in Givenchy, to paint his garden and immediate surroundings.

Max Liebermann, one of the many paintings with chestnut and garden bench. 

Lower: Hélène Maß, (right: courtesy private collection of  Felicity Naylor)

Among the earliest German attempts on modern printmaking was Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944) who was active in Berlin even before Orlik arrived. 

And in Munich Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and his muse Gabriëlle Münter (1877-1962) were “at it” in the first years of the XXth century. But these artists making their later name and fame not by their printmaking but by painting. And their unusual love affair of course.   

Berlin in those years will have been riddled with Art Galleries, Art Shops, Workshops, Studio's and exhibitions held everywhere every day of the 52 weeks of the year. Around 1890-1910 Berlins cultural and artistic influences and popularity, it's many academies, schools, tutors and established artist matching London, Paris and Prag.

"Spree-schlepper" (Spree tugboat) and "bei den Spreefischern" Berlin 1906 prints by Thiemann and Klemm auction catalogue thumbnails. My WBR (web based research, with its limitations and restrictions) so far failed to locate them in color and reasonable resolution. Readers are invited to help discovering them.

In 1906 Walter Klemm and Carl Thiemann visited their colleague and teacher Orlik in Berlin. In 1907 they participated in an exhibition in Hamburg and several works of both men were discussed (reviewd and appraised) later in 1908 in "Zeitschrift für Verfielfaltigende Kunst". Several Hamburg and Prague views and these two River Spree Berlin prints were discussed. And also Thiemann’s swann and Klemm’s turkeys.

Also mentioned and much appraised was the colorful and "Japanese in execution" pine-print by Thiemann, probably the horizontal print below. The pines founnd around the lake Grünewald (Grünewaldsee), a popular and beautiful location forever linked to the many paintings by Mass' painting teacher Walter Leistikow. 

(Shiro Kasamatsu: "Kinokunisaka in Rainy Season")

See also this very fresh posting on Emil Orlik.

All pictures borrowed (reblogged) freely from the internet for friendly, educational non commmercial use.

(to be continued)

Hélène Mass (Maß), painter printmaker (III)

Emil Orlik

(Prag 1870- Berlin 1932)

Painter, Printmaker, Professor

Father of Modern Printmakers

Trying to understand how, in a relative short period, woodblock printmakers like Hélène Maß and so many of her contemporaries from northern Germany achieved such high originality and quality I’ve been journeying around the 1890-1920 period. Meeting the printmakers, painters, the professors, teachers, the visiting artist, exhibitions, critics, publications, organisations etc.

 Emil Orlik (l.) in William Nicholson mode  and Nicholson (r.) in Orlik mode

The pivotal figure in Modern Printmaking in Germany is Emil Orlik. Once he was appointed professor, aged 34, in the Royal Art School of the Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin in 1904 I guess most later known printmaking artists, German and visitors from abroad, will have been under his guidance and influence.

Market: William Nicholson (l.) and Emil Orlik (r.)

In 1902 Orlik returned from Japan. Before he’d visited William Nicholson in London, Felix Valloton in Paris, Max Liebermann in Munich and August Lepère in Paris was still alive, all pioneers of Modern printmaking. Thus Orlik became the funnel between the “before and after” printmakers on the hinge of the 19th and 20th century.     

 Felix Valloton(l.) and Emil Orlik (r.)

In Berlin Orlik succeeded Otto Eckmann (r.) who’d died in 1902. Before, both men were active in Vienna and München. In the south of Germany a first group of German modern printmakers was inspired: Norbertine Bresslern Roth, Carl Thiemann, Carl Moll, Walter Klemm, Martha Cunz, Karl Johne, Ludwig Jungnickel. These artists often originated from neighbouring countries, Hungary, Suisse, Austria. 

Orlik held his position in Berlin until the end of his life in 1932.  Would I like to see the 1900-20 school records and archives to see who was there and when, but I fear these might not have survived the 1930's disapproval and rejection and later the rage and fires that destroyed majestic old Berlin in 1945.

 Hélène Maß, woodblock (l.) and Max Uth (1863-1914), oil (r.)

So many talented women, Else Schmiedeberg-Blume, Elisabeth von Oertzen, Eva-Maria Marcus, Hélène Maß, Joahnna Metzner, Elisabeth Consentius, Margarethe Gerhardt, Hélène Prausnitz-Sagert, Erna Halleur, Ilse Koch, Käthe Hoch, Dagmar Hooge, Lina Ammer, Lisbet Schulz, Eva Roemer, Wally Peretz-Brutzkus, Hélène Isenbart, Meta Cohn-Hendel, Christa Lettow. Relatively few men: among them Carl Alexander Brendel, Daniël Staschus and Heine Rath.

Hélène Maß, woodblock (l.) and Richard Puls (1855-1932), oil (r.)

Most of these women were from well to do families, well trained accomplished painters following courses, classes and lessons in the abundance of first class academies, schools and studios. Some even had been to Paris. A mixed company of generations, married woman and teenagers. In some cases the influence of the painter-teacher on the later printmaking careers is obvious and I think crucial to the quality, diversity and success this "new" method of creating affordable and accountable art in original and individual copies.

 Hélène Maß woodblock (l.) and Walter Leistikow drawing (r.)

Sometimes these Master-Mate connections are known and delivered to us: Else Schmiedeberg~Lovis Corinth, Hélène Maß~Walter Leistikow and Johannes Iten, Carl Alxander Brendel~Paul Frederik Meyerheim and  father Albert), Eva Maria Marcus~Corinth and Orlik. In others I hope one day more details, bits and pieces of their lives and careers will turn up. This medium is one way of trying. Feel free to comment and send suggestions, additions and corrections. 

Hélène Maß and Eva Maria Marcus (1884-1970) woodblock.

Orliks' coming to Berlin, with his drive, his talent and his printmaking know-how was not a seed that fell in a growing pot, but the Messiah of Modern printmaking sowing with generous hands in what must have been the most fertile fields of artistic and aesthetic talent on the planet in the first decades of the 20-th century.  

Emil Orlik portraits by his Munich friend Bernard Pankok (1872-1943)   

To be continued, there's more to come. 

The overlap in posting with other printmaking blogs is purely coincidental, possibly due to the present interest and Emil Orlik exhibitions in Germany.

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