Friedrich Schiff

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Friedrich Schiff (born November 6, 1908 in Vienna ; † March 23, 1968 ibid) was an Austrian painter and draftsman . He was known for his colorful cartoons of everyday life in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s.

Life

Friedrich Hermann Schiff was born in 1908 into a Viennese family characterized by art and humanity. His father Robert Schiff , a sought-after portrait painter in Viennese society , had converted from Judaism to Catholicism . The mother was the actress Regina Eibenschütz (1869–1956), daughter of David Eibenschütz , cantor of the Great Budapest Synagogue .

After attending the drawing school of the KK Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt , Schiff entered the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna at the age of 16 and studied in the following four years with Wilhelm Dachauer and Josef Jungwirth (1869–1950) , among others .

With assignments as a cartoonist for Viennese newspapers, Schiff achieved a good reputation in Austria. But he did not accept it, wanted to expand his field of vision and depict different nations that should be as far away from the Republic of Austria as possible .

At the invitation of his cousin, who was doing business in Shanghai, he traveled to China with the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Chinese Eastern Railway and reached the cosmopolitan city in June 1930 . He stayed for fourteen years and initially got a job as a teacher at the Shanghai Art Club and the Elite Work Room ; in between he organized several exhibitions of his works. With nimble caricatures and sketches, less oil paintings, Schiff conveyed his impressions of the republic of China and became the most famous painter living in Shanghai. He opened his own painting school, the “School of Applied Art”, and produced advertising designs (brochures, invitations, menus) for western companies such as the Dutch shipping company KPM .

Before the Second World War , Schiffs Vater arranged exhibitions for his son in Vienna. Including an exhibition in 1933, in which he showed his exhibits "Scenes from China", which opened up the Chinese world to the amazed audience and were very well reviewed. At one of his exhibitions in Beijing in 1934 he met the photographer Ellen Catleen , who at the time worked as a correspondent for various Berlin newspapers and was married to Willem Thorbecke , the Dutch ambassador to China, from 1935 onwards. In her book, she used expressive photographs to describe the fictional journey of a Mr. Pim and his travel guide Mr. Wu through the Chinese metropolis, its markets, temples and sights. The caricatures by Friedrich Schiff, some of which he drew into the photos, give the whole thing a humorous touch.

If you read newspapers in Shanghai between 1930 and 1947, the name Friedrich Schiff kept coming up. As a painter, Schiff was a guarantee for an influx of visitors with his murals in public buildings and clubs. It was so well known and sought after that magazines advertised giving new subscribers a set of Schiff's graphics.

After Austria was annexed to National Socialist Germany and the November pogroms , Schiff brought his 75-year-old mother to Shanghai. During the war, Schiff suffered from the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. He draws malicious caricatures of the Japanese soldiers. But even after 1945, his sharp pencil did not always show the American liberators in the best light.

With the development of Chiang Kai-shek's defeat by Mao , Schiff left China, like so many Europeans, and fled from Shanghai to Buenos Aires in 1947 before the turmoil of the civil war . He confronted the Argentines with his China in many exhibitions and spoke about the country in many lectures. For this he received a first prize from the Argentine Ministry of Education. There he also succeeded in capturing the different types of population and the peculiarities of the country with great mastery. His work was not limited to the Argentine genre. Several stays in Vienna allowed him to bring impressions of his hometown to Argentine exhibitions. His pictures aroused great interest in Argentina; he again became known nationwide and received numerous prizes and awards.

In 1954 Friedrich Schiff returned to Austria, where he had been forgotten despite the successful exhibitions in the 1930s. Medical care for his daughter with Down syndrome , who had polio in Argentina , forced him to return and he looked for a permanent job. He found this in Vienna at the advertising agency Lintas (Lever International Advertising Service), where he worked successfully as a graphic designer for Unilever until his death in 1968. On April 1, 1968, Friedrich Schiff was buried in the central cemetery in Vienna. His wife Elisabeth Schiff , called Lise, received financial support after his death from the Society of Fine Artists Austria, Künstlerhaus , which he joined in 1961.

In 1999, a “Friedrich Schiff Association” was founded in Vienna, which aims to remember the Austrian Chinese painter and holds exhibitions in the gallery at Josefstädter Straße 20 with regard to contemporary Austrian and Chinese artists.

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Schiff was very versatile, was also a great portrait painter and landscape painter , as well as an interpreter of everyday life in the Chinese city. He painted oil paintings, watercolors of landscapes, as well as the covers of Chinese magazines, made book illustrations about Shanghai and Beijing, and the popular postcard series from the Shanghai milieu, the headline of the day for newspapers and advertising graphics. Schiff painted everything that came to mind in Shanghai, its surroundings and in Beijing: street scenes, wedding and funeral customs, Beijing opera and craftsmen. He also sympathized with the suffering Chinese population and set a monument in his work for the socially disadvantaged, the coolies, collectors of junk, flower girls, street acrobats, beggars and prostitutes. With his accurate caricatures and illustrations in collaboration with Ellen Thorbecke about Beijing (1934), Shanghai (1938) and Hong Kong (1938), Schiff had corresponding success.

Works (selection)

  • Peking Studies. Ellen Catleen (author and photographer), FH Schiff (illustrator), Kelly & Walsh, Shanghai, 1934
  • Maskee: A Shanghai Sketchbook , by Schiff
  • Final Notice. A Shanghai emergency sketchbook , by Schiff.
  • Shanghai , Photographed & depicted by Ellen Thorbecke, 1941 Digitized images

Exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Matthias Messer: China: Schauplätze west-eastern encounters , Böhlau, Vienna, 2007, ISBN 978-3205775942 , in Independent Freelancers , pp. 376-380.
  • Xu Buceng: Great Jewish Master in Shanghai's Artistic Circle in The Jewish cultural elite of Shanghai , Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, Shanghai, 2007, ISBN 9787807450122 , OCLC 166248060
  • Gerd Kaminski (Ed.): Chinaszenen. A contemporary document in pictures by Friedrich Schiff (1908–1968) , Drachenhaus Verlag, 2016, ISBN 3-943314-19-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KPM - photographed and depicted by Publicity Department KPM with sketches by PTO, illustrated by Friedrich Schiff, Batavia-Centrum: Royal Packet Navigation Company, 1939 , from the National Library of Australia, accessed January 5, 2017.
  2. ^ Schiff Frederick H., painter. Figure 564 (Vienna November 6th, 1908, + Vienna March 23rd, 1968), = fire hall Simmering April 1st, 1968, central cemetery. Recorded on April 28, 1961. Portrait, landscape and still life painter. Also signed with the first name Friedrich Hermann. 1930–1947 in China; 1947-1953 in Buenos Aires. 1963 shop window; 1968 and 1988 memorial exhibitions at the KH. His widow Lise Schiff received financial support from the KH. Son of the painter Robert Schiff. , from Wladimir Aichelburg, Membership Directory, accessed January 3, 2016.
  3. ↑ Description of the contents (English): The tile "Maskee" is a very old China coast Pidgin English corruption of the Portuguese word meaning "Never Mind". , from rareorientalbooks.com, accessed January 5, 2017.
  4. ^ Friedrich Schiff , on art and research database, basis-wien.at, accessed on January 5, 2017.
  5. ^ Herbert Stefan: Introductory words to the Friedrich Schiff memorial exhibition in the Vienna Künstlerhaus in June 1988
  6. ↑ The author of the book The Jewish cultural elite of Shanghai is Xu Buceng, professor at the Information Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences in Shanghai. The book consists of 17 articles dealing with the life, work and achievements of 17 Jews from Germany, Austria, Italy, Romania and other countries who were in Shanghai during the Second World War.
personal data
SURNAME Ship, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ship, Frederick; Ship, Frederik; Schiff, Friedrich Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter, draftsman and caricaturist
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1968
Place of death Vienna