LUDWIG HIRSCHFELD–MACK
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(1893 – 1965, German/Australian) UNTITLED (SEATED FEMALE FIGURE WITH LONG YELLOW HAIR), 1921 – 22 oil on canvas 77.0 x 53.5 cm ESTIMATE: $40,000 – 60,000
PROVENANCE The estate of the artist Private collection, Italy EXHIBITED Bauhaus e visioni, Museum of Modern Art, Bolzano, Italy, 2000 – 01, cat. 39; Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Germany LITERATURE Stasny, P., Ludwig Hirschfeld–Mack: Bauhaus e visioni, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany, 2000, cat. 39, pp. 53 (illus.), 56
The arrival of Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack in Australia in 1940 established a direct link between avant-garde European modernism and twentieth century Australian art. Interned in England, where he had sought refuge from the rise of Nazism in Germany, Hirschfeld-Mack was one of more than two and half thousand men transported to Australia on board the HMT Dunera. Many of the ship’s passengers were highly educated, skilled professionals who went on to make significant contributions to the cultural, economic and social life of their new country. In the creative fields of art and design alone, the ‘Dunera Boys’ included the photographer Henry Talbot, the sculptor Erwin Fabian, and Fred Lowen and Ernst Rodeck, founders of FLER furniture. Hirschfeld-Mack was one of the most well-trained artists on the Dunera. His studies began in 1913 when, with the support of a monthly allowance from his father, he enrolled at the Debschitz School in Munich, while undertaking compulsory military training.1 Progressive in its approach, the school welcomed female students (including Hirschfeld-Mack’s sister, Emmy, who established a career in costume design) and staff, and encouraged the application of the visual and applied arts to everyday life. 2 This approach aligned with the philosophy of the Bauhaus, where Hirschfeld-Mack continued his studies between 1919 – 25. Founded by architect Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus counted among its teachers some of the most innovative and influential artists of the time, including Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky and Oskar Schlemmer. Reflecting the idealism and desire for a better world which was shared by so many following the devastating experience of the First World War, the school’s manifesto proposed a radical challenge: ‘Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Together let us conceive and create the new building of the future, which can embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity.’3 Painted in oil on canvas, Untitled (Seated female figure with long yellow hair), 1921 – 22 was made mid-way through Hirschfeld-Mack’s years at the Bauhaus. Sophisticated in its technical realisation and complex in composition, the painting reflects the work of a skilled artist who is absorbing and distilling a range of creative influences. Art historian,
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