Albert Reuss

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Albert Reuss, 1915

Albert Reuss born when Albert Reisz (* 2. October 1889 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † 4. November 1975 in Cornwall Truro ), was an Austrian-English painter , sculptor and draftsman , in 1938 because of the annexation of Austria to the German Reich emigrated to England. In recent years his work has received new attention as part of the study of the art of the lost generation . In 2007 his works were shown in the Leopold Collection in the exhibition “Between the Wars. Austrian Artists 1918–1938 ”.

Life

Childhood and youth. First successes as a painter in Vienna

Albert Reuss, 1918

Albert Reuss was the son of Jewish ritual slaughterer and butcher master Ignaz Reisz (* 1855 in Grivana; † 1911 in Vienna), in-born and Sidonia friend († 1928 in Vienna * 1861 in Nitra) Vienna born. He had eight brothers and two sisters, three of whom died in early childhood. In the late 1880s, the family moved from Hungary to Vienna, where the family name was registered as Reiss by the authorities . Reuss began painting at the age of 5. At 12 he received painting lessons from an uncle, Baron Andreas Ritter von Reisinger, who was married to a sister of his father's. When Reuss presented him with a painting of Ludwig van Beethoven's death mask , his uncle doubted that the work was his. The questioning of his artistic abilities was to remain in Reuss' mind until the end of his life. After finishing primary school, at the age of 14, he applied unsuccessfully to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna . In the meantime he had to help his father as a groom or to lead animals to the slaughterhouse, which he experienced as "frightening". Originally he was supposed to continue his father's profession. However, he wanted to take into account the unusual inclinations of his son and set him training as an actor. From 1909 to 1913 Reuss took on roles in various Austrian and Czech provincial theaters, in which he also had to complete vocal appearances. In retrospect Reuss commented on his activity itself ironic, mentioned a lisp and his inability to inputs of the prompter to look for. He had refused to be called up for military service. Failing to pay the 5 shillings fine, he was detained in a prison for 24 hours. During the First World War , Reuss was deployed to Vienna because of his fragile state of health, he suffered from pneumonia and pleurisy throughout his life and was not deployed to the front. In 1915 he met Rosa Feinstein (* 1891 in Vienna), the daughter of a Jewish-Russian businessman. He and Rosa were married in December 1916. In the same year he contracted tuberculosis and spent 18 months in a sanatorium while his wife made a living as a secretary. In October 1922, the couple converted to Christianity. Albert settled in Vienna at Möllwaldplatz 3 as a painter and used the surname “Reuss” for the first time (the name was officially registered in 1931). The 10-year-old student Sylvio Metzger, who remained close friends with Albert and Rosa Reuss throughout his life, moved into the apartment. In 1922 Reuss took part with the portrait “Prof. Dr. AM ”at an exhibition at the Vienna Secession . He made a name for himself as a portrait painter, exhibited in the Hagenbund from 1925 and had his first solo exhibition in the famous Würthle Gallery in 1926. His exhibitions received good reviews in the press. From 1926 to 1938 he taught at the Professional Institute for the clothing industry in the fields of Design for Women and Art History . A sponsor made it possible for him and his wife to spend one year in Cannes in 1930 , where Reuss created over 40 paintings. Two years later he received Austrian citizenship with the certificate of origin. From the mid-1930s he was also active as a sculptor, making portrait busts of the actress Maria Eis and of the Viennese councilor Johann Grossinger. Through an intermediary, he was invited to stay on an estate in Bedfordshire in 1935 .

1938: Escape to England

By the annexation of Austria had to the German Reich in March 1938 Reuss, who had established themselves as a painter and sculptor in Viennese society and had come to prosperity, to flee with his wife from Austria. With the help of the English contacts he was able to build up during his stay in Bedfordshire and through the mediation of the Birmingham University Professor John Sturge Stevens, a member of the Religious Society of Friends , they managed to move to England, where the couple succeeded in August 1938 with 10 Reichsmarks (more Cash was not allowed to emigrants by the German authorities when leaving the country) arrived in Dover . The entire household of the Vienna apartment, which consisted of 38 containers, was confiscated by the National Socialists . Some members of the Reuss family were no longer able to escape from the German-occupied areas in time. They did not survive the Holocaust and died in the Maly Trostenez and Treblinka extermination camps . After a short stay in London , Stephens invited the couple to St Mawes in Cornwall , where Reuss was allowed to use the studio of two painters. In October 1938 his first exhibition was set up there, which was an economic success and which led to another exhibition at Lanham's Gallery in St Ives (Cornwall) . A third exhibition took place in Truro in August 1939. After the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the British declaration of war on Germany, Reuss was imprisoned as an enemy alien in an internment camp in Shropshire in June 1940 . Due to relationships, he was released in August and moved with his wife to rent to Cheltenham , where the couple lived for the next eight years. A fourth solo exhibition took place in Cheltenham in 1940. Reuss got a job as an art teacher at the local Dean Close School and was now economically independent. In 1947 Albert and Rosa Reuss received English citizenship.

1948: Relocation to Mousehole

The painter Ruth Adams, born in York in 1893 , who bought a painting by Reuss in his first English exhibition, had the couple built a spacious house with a studio in Mousehole , called ARRA , which Albert and Rosa moved into in March 1948. Reuss had previously created around 200 paintings in the living room of the Cheltenham apartment, which he brought to his new studio. The years in post-war England were marked by financial bottlenecks caused by rising living costs. Also, Reuss no longer earned any money from art classes and had to earn income exclusively from selling pictures. Adams was also killed in an accident a few weeks after moving to Mousehole. Although the house was signed to the Reuss couple, it was neither finished nor furnished. In the first few years, the couple found little connection with the local population due to the unapproachable charisma of Reuss, who were said to have had behavioral patterns that indicate Asperger's syndrome . On the ground floor of the house, Rosa Reuss and a friend ran the “ARRA Gallery”, in which exhibitions such as the “Exhibition of Designs” were organized in collaboration with the Arts Council of Great Britain and local artists such as Jack Pender from Mousehole or Alexander Mackenzie , a painter from the St Ives artists' colony, presented work. In return, Albert Reuss tried to find a connection with the local artist colonies. Efforts to join the Penwith Society of Artists were unsuccessful after a correspondence with founding member Peter Lanyon . From 1951 he found a temporary job as an art teacher at the Penzance County School for Boys (Penzance Grammar School). From 1953, through the mediation of the art critic Kenneth Romney Towndrow, a collaboration with the renowned O'Hana Gallery began, which would last for 20 years. Jacques O'Hana, a brother of the French composer Maurice Ohana , was an international art dealer who specialized in trading with French impressionists . The headquarters of his gallery was in London , where a first solo exhibition took place from April to May 1953. While the relationship between the art dealer and the artist was initially tense, after his second exhibition, O'Hana tried to persuade Reuss to present more friendly and easy-to-sell subjects, to which the painter reacted with a decidedly negative reaction, the relationship turned into a friendship over the years and ´Hana became one of the most important sponsors and supporters of Reuss Werk. In 1966 the gallery owner visited Mousehole for the first time.

Estate Settlement and Death

Albert and Rosa Reuss 'last years were marked by changing hospital stays and financial bottlenecks, even if the couple had submitted applications for compensation to the Austrian Relief Fund for Victims of Political Persecution until 1963, received a low pension and additionally supported monthly from Reuss' younger brother Max has been. In January 1970, the artist's wife died, who had taken care of her husband's organizational matters all her life and kept in touch with the outside world. Shortly before, O'Hana had survived a heart attack. Concerned about his artistic legacy and that his pictures could be destroyed after his death, Albert Reuss gave a large part of his work to the gallery. An estate arrangement was made with the help of the press secretary of the Austrian embassy in London, Dr. Ingo Mussi (1935–2012), who was able to convey some of Reuss' works to international museums. A planned biography failed in 1970 due to the artist's consent, who was not satisfied with the texts about him by Max Wykes-Joyce . Jacques O'Hana died in July 1974. At this time there were 165 paintings, sculptures and drawings in the London gallery, which was closed in March 1975 by the gallery owner's widow. Ingo Mussi was able to convey the work to Austria through the Euro Art Society , which organized an exhibition at the Bawag Foundation in September 1975 under the title "Pictures of Solitude - Albert Reuss". The opening speech was given by the later Austrian Chancellor Fred Sinowatz . Albert Reuss was able to experience this success. He died after hospitalization at the age of 86 on November 4, 1975 in a care home in Truro, Cornwall .

plant

When Reuss turned completely to painting in the 1930s, his style was expressive with impasto application of paint as in the paintings "Woman reading a newspaper" from 1930 (69 × 56.5 cm, The Cheltenham Trust and Cheltenham Borough Council) or " Die Kärtner Familie ”from 1932 (99 × 130.5 cm, private collection). Thematically, he dealt with landscapes, still lifes and figure paintings.

In England his painting changed to landscape paintings and melancholy figure compositions in cool colors with tendencies towards reduction, abstraction and a surreal expression. The paintings reflect the experiences of loss of an uprooted person who at the age of 50 had to build a new life in a foreign country, whose language he did not speak, and who could never make friends. The reviews of the 1950s and 1960s particularly emphasized the clarity of the line, the simplicity of the paintings and the spirituality to be discovered in them. After moving to Mousehole, Reuss increasingly turned to empty landscapes with alluvial flotsam, bare trees, broken fences and walls. The objects seem to float abandoned in space and no longer have a hold. They seem to be torn from their natural context and represent the abandonment of an object that does not fit into its environment. By and large, Reuss was despondent by the reserved reactions of the art public. “If I were to live on the moon, I couldn't have less contact with the world than I am now.” The later work became even darker and revealed his psychological state. “I became so pessimistic that I didn't care what happened to me.” He himself called the fruits of his labor “images of loneliness”.

Solo exhibitions

  • 1926, 1931: Würthle Gallery, Vienna
  • 1938: St Mawes, Cornwall
  • 1938: Lanham's Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall
  • 1938: Gas Company Showroom, Truro, Cornwall
  • 1940: Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Gloucestershire
  • 1944: Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Gloucestershire
  • 1945: Royal Birmingham Society of Artists / New Street Gallery, Birmingham
  • 1945: Laing Art Gallery and Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne
  • 1945: Salford Museum and Art Gallery
  • 1947: Turner House Gallery, Penarth, Wales
  • 1948: Royal Cornwall Polytechnic, Falmouth, Cornwall
  • 1949, 1951, 1956: Studio ARRA, Mousehole, Cornwall
  • 1950: Woseley Room / Hove Public Library, Brighton, Sussex
  • 1950: Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery, Darlington, North East England
  • 1951: Bankfield Museum, Halifax, West Yorkshire
  • 1951: Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, North East England
  • 1952: Public Library and Museum, South Shields, North East England
  • 1953: Victoria Park Museum, Keighley, West Yorkshire
  • 1953: Batley Art Gallery, Batley, West Yorkshire
  • 1953–1973: biennial exhibitions at the O'Hana Gallery, London
  • 1956: Heffer Gallery, Cambridge
  • 1974, 1979, 1980, 1983: The Newlyn Orion, Penzanze, Cornwall
  • 1975: Pictures of Solitude , Bawag Foundation, Vienna
  • 1977: Preston Art Gallery, Lancashire
  • 1982: City Art Gallery, Plymouth, Devon
  • 1985: Galerie Kuckucksmühle, Hilter, Germany
  • 1989: Ginger Gallery, Bristol
  • 1992: Newlyn Orion Art Gallery, Penzanze, Cornwall
  • 2017: Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzanze, Cornwall

Group exhibitions

Public collections

Austria

England

Israel

United States

Russia

  • Moscow Print Cabinet, Moscow

biography

  • Susan Soyinka: Albert Reuss in Mousehole. The Artist as Refugee. Sansom and Company, Bristol 2017, ISBN 978-1-911408-16-1 .

Literature (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas B. Schumann (Ed.), German Artists in Exile 1933–1945 , Edition Memoria, Hürth 2016, ISBN 978-3-930353-35-4
  2. ^ Susan Soyinka: Albert Reuss in Mousehole. The Artist as Refugee. Sansom and Company, Bristol 2017, ISBN 978-1-911408-16-1 , pp. 14, 15
  3. ↑ All biographical information comes from: Susan Soyinka: Albert Reuss in Mousehole . The Artist as Refugee. Sansom and Company, Bristol 2017, ISBN 978-1-911408-16-1 .
  4. ^ Albert Reuss on the Newlyn Art Gallery page
personal data
SURNAME Reuss, Albert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reisz, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-English painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 4th November 1975
Place of death Truro (Cornwall)