Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack | |
---|---|
Allambie Heights, Sydney, Australia | |
Occupation | Artist, musician, art educator |
Nationality | German |
Alma mater | Bauhaus, Weimar |
Notable works | Desolation, Internment Camp, Hay 1941 |
Spouse | Elenor Wirth (1917–53) Olive Russell (1955–65) |
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack (11 July 1893, in
His formative education was 1912–1914 at Debschitz art school in Munich. He studied at the Bauhaus from 1919–24 and remained working there until 1926 where, along with Kurt Schwerdtfeger,[1] he further developed the Farblichtspiele ('coloured-light-plays'), which used a projection device to produce moving colours on a transparent screen accompanied by music composed by Hirschfeld Mack. It is now regarded as an early form of multimedia.[2][3] He was a participant, along with the former Bauhaus master Gertrud Grunow, in den II. Kongreß für Farbe-Ton-Forschung (Hamburg 1. - 5. Oktober 1930) (English: Second Congress for Colour-Sound Research, Hamburg).[4] In 1923 he participated in the prestigious film festival "Der Absolute Film in Berlin with other film producers such as Hans Richter Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann, Fernand Léger. Francis Picabia and Renée Clair.[5] Music and colour theory remained lifelong interests, informing his art work in a number of media, and it was the inspiration for his well-respected and influential teaching.
Life
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack was born in
Bauhaus
Hirschfeld Mack completed a craftsman apprenticeship at his father's leather factory before studying at the Teaching and Experimental Studios for Applied and Free Art under
He remained at the Weimar Bauhaus until its closure in 1925 and conducted experiments in light projection, following German sculptor Kurt Schwerdtfeger (1897–1966) in developing the "Farbenlichtspiele" (colour-light play), producing an apparatus that combined moving projections of coloured light through mechanically operable geometric stencils displayed to music created by Ludwig himself.[9] Its first performance was at the Bauhaus Lantern Festival 21 June 1922. Ludwig described the kinetic projection as "fugue-like, strictly structured plays of colour, always derived from a definite colour-form theme".
In 1963, Hans Maria Wingler, the director of the newly established Bauhaus Archiv in Darmstadt, Germany, invited Ludwig to reconstruct his colour light plays, which required him to reconstruct the apparatus and rewrite the scores from his notes and his memory as well as prepare the music for the performance at the Bauhaus Archiv in Darmstadt. In early 1964 he and his second wife Olive departed for Europe and spent some time in Darmstadt training assistants for the performance.[10] With the assistance of sponsors, a film of the black and white play Kreuzspiel was subsequently made by the trained assistants after his death and two copies of this film remain. In 2000 under the direction and assistance of Hirschfeld-Mack's grandson Kaj Delugan performances of the plays were filmed in colour by Corinne Schweizer and Peter Böhm with a musical sound-track for the 2000 Exhibition in Bolzano, Italy.[11]
Further teaching
In 1926, Hirschfeld Mack began teaching art in the Free School in
United Kingdom
Upon arrival Hirschfeld Mack spent some time in Haselmere in Surrey before moving to London, where he was eventually offered employment under the Quaker Subsistence Program, which aimed to teach unemployed miners in Wales new skills, where he was in charge of the carpentry workshop. After returning to Germany to finalise his papers and spending some time in a carpentry workshop, he returned to England to commence his employment in Cwmavon, Wales in the Eastern Valley of Monmouthshire in South Wales around May 1936.[15] Elenor (d.1953) remained in Germany with the two youngest daughters, while his eldest, Marga, followed him into English exile. Sadly his second daughter Ursel (17) died by suicide in April 1938.[16] The Museum of Modern Art, New York, included his work in its Bauhaus retrospective of 1938[17]
Australia
In 1940 Hirschfeld Mack was deported to Australia as an
Recognition
Hirschfeld was amongst a number of European wartime refugees who contributed to the renewal of Australian Art.[21][22][23] As Professor Joseph Burke then Professor of Fine Arts, Melbourne University, notes in 1954: "Among the leaders of this "New Australian" contribution may be mentioned Desiderius Orban (b. 1884), a distinguished painter whose teaching has made a profound mark in Sydney in the post-war years; Dr. Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, an original member of the Bauhaus staff, a close colleague and friend of Paul Klee, whose work has influenced his own highly original abstract paintings; Sali Herman (b. 1898), and the recent winner of the Blake Prize for religious art, Michael Kmit, from the Ukraine.[24]
Hirschfeld was also a guest lecturer at the University of Melbourne, where he had his first exhibition in Australia in the Rowden White Library in 1946, possibly organised by fellow Dunera passenger Franz Philipp,[25][26] and in the same year his work was included in group exhibitions of the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) in Sydney and in Melbourne during its most radical period under John Reed (art patron).[27] He showed also at the Peter Bray Gallery in Melbourne, in 1953.[28][29]
In 1949–1950, 1958 and 1964 he visited Europe. When Walter Gropius came to lecture at the Royal Australian Institute of Architects convention in Sydney in 1954 he made a special trip to Geelong Grammar School to visit his former colleague.
In 1955 Hirschfeld married Miss Olive Russell, a leading
In 1960, Clement Meadmore selected works from Hirschfeld Mack's own collection to curate the first significant exhibition of Bauhaus ideas and work in Australia, "The Bauhaus - Aspects and Influences", at Gallery A in Melbourne (July–August 1961).[32] Included were Hirschfeld Mack's own works and colour-coded musical instruments and proof prints he had made for other Bauhaus artists as well as numbers of works given to him during his period at the Bauhaus. After Hirschfeld Mack's death, Gallery A held a commemorative exhibition of his watercolours.[33][34][35]
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack died on 7 January 1965 at
Exhibitions
- Work represented in Bauhaus: 1919-1925 MOMA New York 1938
- University of Melbourne, 1946
- Solo exhibition Peter Bray Gallery, 435 Bourke St., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 1953
- Memorial exhibition at University Gallery Melbourne, 1981
- The Great Australian Art Exhibition 1788-1988 Art Gallery of South Australia, 1988[36]
- Bauhaus Centenary: Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, Feb 23, 2019–May 26, 2019 Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong [1]
Publications
He produced an explanatory text of the Farbenlichtspiele in 1923,[37] also an article, "Reflected-Light Compositions..." (1925)[38] In retirement in 1963 he published The Bauhaus: An Introductory Survey.[39]
The Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Collection
The Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Collection was presented Melbourne University in 1971 and 1980 by Hirschfeld Mack's widow, Olive Hirschfeld. The collection contains over six hundred works by Hirschfeld Mack, including almost three hundred drawings, over two hundred prints, ninety-one watercolours and sixty-nine paintings. In addition the University of Melbourne Archives houses material including correspondence, teaching aids, drawings, photographs and slides.[citation needed]
Olive Hirschfeld also donated a collection of her late husband's paintings, prints and drawings to the National Gallery of Australia, and a number of his works, many from his internment at nearby Tatura, can be found at the Geelong and Shepparton Regional Art Galleries.[40]
The Hirschfeld-Mack Professorship in Germany and Australia
In 2008, the Institute of English Philology at the Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie der Freien Universität Berlin (FU)) set up a Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Visiting Chair of Australian Studies[41] The professorship is named after Hirschfeld-Mack, "to stress the interdisciplinary nature of its teachers, their commitment to the role of culture in the public sphere, and the central transcultural German-Australian aspect of the project." The chair is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Australian Embassy in Berlin.
Hirschfeld-Mack professors in Berlin included: Dr.
In 2010 DAAD established, in the reverse direction, a Hirschfeld-Mack Visiting Chair for German Studies at the German Department at the University of Western Australia. Through this reciprocal visiting professor program the exchange between the Australian and German higher education system is intensified. The first Hirschfeld-Mack professors in Perth were the Germanists Dr. Matthias N. Lorenz,
Further reading
- Art and Australia, 30, no 4, 1993, p 518
- Bate, W. (1990) Light Blue Down Under. Melbourne
- Böhm, Peter; Schweizer, Corrinne (Directors). Farben Licht Spiele: Reconstruction 2000. DVD-Video, PAL, stereo, dur. 45 min. (Film of a reconstruction of Hirschfeld Mack's light playing apparatus.)
- Frances Derham MBE: a retrospective exhibition covering the period 1910 to 1985 and including works by her associates: Mary Cecil Allen, George Bell, Danila Vassilieff, Geoff Jones, Ethel Spowers, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. East Malvern, Vic. : Jim Alexander Gallery, 1986.
- Draffin, Nicholas (1974) Two masters of the Weimar Bauhaus :Lyonel Feininger, Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack [Sydney] : Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales,. ISBN 072410738X.
- Elsen, G. (1990) The Dunera Experience, exhibition catalogue, Jewish Museum of Australia. Melbourne :
- Form (Cambridge, England), 2, Sept 1966, p 10
- Hapkemeyer, Andreas/Stasney, Peter (Eds.), (2000) Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. Bauhaus and visionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag, OstfildernRuit, ISBN 978-3-7757-0928-6.,
- Merewether, Charles, (1984), Art and Social Commitment, Sydney, NSW : Art Gallery of New South Wales.
- McNamara, Andrew (2008) 'The Bauhaus in Australia', in Ann Stephen, Philip Goad, and Andrew McNamara, Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia, Melbourne 2008, 215.
- McCulloch, A., (1984), Encyclopedia of Australian Art, Melbourne, Vic (Second edition)
- Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig, (1963) The Bauhaus : an introductory survey; with a foreword by Walter Gropius, introduction by Joseph Burke, epilogue by Sir Herbert Read. Croydon, Vic. : Longmans Green
- Pearl, C. (1983) The Dunera Scandal. Sydney :
- Renowden, F. & Schwarzbauer, R. (2006) The Bauhaus Legacy at GGS. Works designed and inspired or created by Ludwig Hirschfield Mack (1893–1965), Art Master 1942-1957.
- Seear, Lynne & Ewington, Julie (eds.)(1998) Brought to light: Australian art 1850–1965 : from the Queensland Art Gallery collection. South Brisbane : Queensland Art Gallery.
- Stasny, Peter (1991) Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Künstler, Kunsttheoretiker und Kunstpädagoge im Gefolge des Weimarer Bauhaus (PhD thesis, University of Vienna).
- Stephen, Ann, Goad, Philip and McNamara, Andrew (eds.) Modern times : the untold story of modernism in Australia. Carlton, Vic. : Miegunyah Press ; Sydney, N.S.W. : in association with Powerhouse Publishing, 2008.
- Thomas, Daniel & Radford, Ron, (1988), The Great Australian Art Exhibition, CAT.
- Underhill, N. (1977) Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack, exhibition catalogue, Brisbane.
- Schwarzbauer, Resi, with Bell, Chris (2021) Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, More Than A Bauhaus Artist HistorySmiths Pty Ltd, ACN 082 919 480, ISBN 978-0-6489574-1-6.
References
- ^ "Kurt Schwerdtfeger". Bauhaus Online. Retrieved 30 November 2018.
- ^ Lameri, Bregt (2013) Colourful Projections: Bauhaus Farbenlichtspiele and their Various Reconstruction (PDF) Archived 7 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 6 November 2016
- ISSN 0024-094X. Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 397-406, 1988, p.404
- ^ Farbe-Ton-Forschungen. III. Band. Bericht über den II. Kongreß für Farbe-Ton-Forschung (Hamburg 1. - 5. Oktober 1930). Published 1931.
- ^ Schwarzbauer, Resi, Bell, Chris, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, HistorySmiths, Melbourne, 2021, p. 63.
- ^ a b Bauhaus100. Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. Retrieved 30 November 2018
- ^ a b Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig (1893–1965). Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
- ISBN 3110217716, 9783110217711
- ^ McDonough, T. (2014). Janice Kerbel: Killing the Workers. Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, and Enquiry, 37(1), 102-111.
- ^ Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, pp. 274 - 277. Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig & Hapkemeyer, Andreas, 1955- & Stasny, Peter & Museion (Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy) (2000). Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack : Bauhäusler und Visionär. H. Cantz, Ostfildern
- ISBN 978-0-522-85551-7Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, p 287. }
- ^ Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, p. 90.
- ^ Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, pp. 102 - 110.
- ^ : Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, p. 114. Vinzent, Jutta (2006) Identity and image : refugee artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, 1933-1945. VDG, Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, Weimar
- ^ Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, pp. 116 - 118
- ^ Schwarzbauer and Bell, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, more than a Bauhaus Artist, p. 125
- ^ Herboth, E. J. Review: The Bauhaus at MoMA Design Observer, 11.15.09. Observer Omnimedia LLC.
- monotype printing, using old windowpanes or discarded Masonite, and printing ink made from black shoe polish. The shortage of materials in these barren surroundings madeSouthern Cross through the barbed wirefence of the camp. Made by an artist far from home, there is a palpable sense of despair and isolation beneath the alien night sky.". Sarina Noordhuis-Fairfax. The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 in artonview, pp14-23, Issue no. 49, Autumn 2007, National Gallery of Australia.ISSN 1323-4552
- ^ Corian Geelong Grammar School, May 1955, p.30
- ^ 'A complete orchestra-The Colour Chord: Happiness from colour "chord" for children at new occupational centre', Geelong Advertiser 7 July 1965.
- ^ Whitehead, Eileen (1 January 2009), World War II prisoner of war visual art : Investigating its significance in contemporary society, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia
- ^ Whitehead, E. (2014). A Leap in the Dark: Identity, Culture and the Trauma of War Mediated Thorough The Visual Arts of North-East European Migrants And Émigrés To Australia After 1945.
- ^ Butler, R., & Donaldson, A. D. S. (2015). War and peace: 200 years of Australian-German artistic relations. EMAJ Electronic Melbourne Art Journal, 1(8), 1-24.
- ^ "Art in Australia". The Sydney Morning Herald. National Library of Australia. 4 February 1954. p. 10 Supplement: Royal Tour Supplement.
- ^ 'Water Colour Exhibition: Grammar School master's work', Geelong Advertiser, 25 March 1946
- ^ Thomas, D. 'Hirschfeld-Mack: Daniel Thomas on the influence of his teacher Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack' Art and Australia vol. 30, no. 4, Winter 1933, p.520
- ^ 1946 Catalogue for the 8th Contemporary Art Society, Hirschfeld-Mack archive, Baillieu Library, Melbourne University
- ^ Stephen, A. (2006) Modernism & Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917-1967, Miegunyah Press, 632.
- ^ :Deutsher, Chris & Butler, Roger, 1948- & Witt, Dixie & Deutsher Galleries (1978). A survey of Australian relief prints, 1900/1950. Deutscher Galleries, Armadale, Vic
- ^ Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig & Hapkemeyer, Andreas, 1955- & Stasny, Peter & Museion (Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy) (2000). Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack : Bauhäusler und Visionär. H. Cantz, Ostfildern
- ^ Tim Fisher, 'Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig (1893–1965)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hirschfeld-mack-ludwig-10510/text18651, published first in hardcopy 1996, accessed online 3 May 2018.
- ^ Gallery A. (Art gallery) (1960), The Bauhaus : aspects and influence, Melbourne
- ^ McNamara, Andrew (2008) 'The Bauhaus in Australia', in Ann Stephen, Philip Goad, and Andrew McNamara, Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia, Melbourne 2008, 8.
- ^ MS 7 Papers of Gallery A [Box number: folder number], National Gallery of Australia Research Library Archives, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Item 3GA 158 List of items sold at the L. Hirschfeld Mack Exhibition, Gallery A, Melbourne, 15 and 26 November 1965, two pages, and Item 1GA 76.5 Exhibition catalogue (Number 9) for L. HirschfeldMack, at Gallery A, 60 Flinders Lane. Includes an illustration, introduction, titles and prices of forty works. Melbourne, March 1960, eight pages.
- ^ Gallery A (Melbourne, Vic.), [Gallery A (Melbourne, Vic.) : Australian Gallery File], retrieved 3 May 2018
- ISBN 0-642-13433-2"Published on the occasion of The Great Australian Art Exhibition 1788–1988 originated by the Art Gallery of South Australia and presented by the International Cultural Corporation of Australia for the Australian Bicentennial Authority".
- ^ Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig: Farben Licht-Spiele, Wiesen-Ziele-Kritiken (Weimar, 1923)
- ISBN 0-262-23033-X, 9780262230339, 653 pages ed.
- ^ Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig: The Bauhaus : an introductory survey; with a foreword by Walter Gropius, introduction by Joseph Burke, epilogue by Sir Herbert Read. Croydon, Vic. : Longmans Green, 1963.
- ISSN 1835-6028
- ^ Freie Universität Berlin. Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack Gastlehrstuhl für Australienstudien (in English). Retrieved 18 January 2018