Gertrude Langer

Gertrude Langer

Gertrude Langer OBE (born July 1, 1908 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † December 19, 1984 in Binna Burra , Queensland ; born Gertrude Fröschel ) was an Austrian - Australian art historian and art critic .

Life

Gertrude Langer was born in Vienna as the eldest daughter of the married couple Alois Fröschel and Channa Fröschel. The parents belonged to the educated Jewish bourgeoisie and led a well-off life through their partnership in the textile company Leo Brill .

Gertrude Langer attended the Black Forest School , a private school with a focus on artistic skills. The teachers included greats of Viennese Modernism such as Adolf Loos , Oskar Kokoschka and Grete Wiesenthal . As a result of her training, she decided to study art history at the University of Vienna from 1926 . In 1933 Fröschl completed her doctorate , spending two semesters at the Sorbonne in Paris. During her studies she married the Viennese architect Karl Langer .

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, Gertrude Langer and her husband fled to Australia, where they settled in Queensland .

Initially, Langer did not have any career prospects in the university and museum sector or in the art trade . Her pre-migration experience in popular education enabled her to gain a foothold on a private level. She began teaching art history subjects to students in her apartment in 1940. In the same year she was already speaking at the Lunch Hour Lectures after being invited to give presentations by the Business Professional Women's Club , the Women's Graduates and the Queensland Art Fund . This publicity got her the attention of the public in Brisbane as a Viennese art expert. From the home presentations a comprehensive series of lectures developed, which she gave for several years at the University of Queensland . With this she filled a gap in art history teaching by making it accessible to a broad audience. In addition to this series of lectures, she taught postgraduate students at the University of Queensland.

Gertrude Langer's journalistic career as an art critic began with giving private introductory courses on art history. But very soon she established herself as an authority in the arts and she became the chief art critic for the Courier-Mail , where she worked from 1956 to 1984. The art critic's reviews are considered to be art-historical and philosophical and are characterized by a descriptive and literarily skillful style, which stood out from the brief and commercial nature of the time. Langer was one of the founders of the Queensland division of the Association Internationale des Critiques d'Art in 1961 . From 1970 to 1972 she was vice president and from 1975 to 1978 president of the Australian division of this art critic organization. With her lectures and her journalistic work, she advocated a supportive and tolerant approach to modern art forms and contemporary Australian art.

In 1961 Gertrude Langer also assumed the presidency of the Arts Council of Australia (Queensland Division). Her activities have included promoting public art understanding, organizing professional performances and exhibitions throughout the state of Queensland. She herself lectured at the exhibitions and initiated the establishment of branches so that the cultural infrastructure was consolidated. Her presidency lasted until 1975, when the number of branches rose from 12 to 52.

Memorial for the marginalized, expelled and murdered graduates of the Art History Institute of the University of Vienna

Awards and honors

• Officer of the Order of the British Empire (1968)
• Mention on the memorial for excluded, emigrated and murdered art historians on the campus of the University of Vienna (2008)
• Gertrude Langer Ensemble of the Queensland Arts Council (2008)
• Annual lecture at the Queensland Art Gallery , named after Gertrude Langer

Works

• Love Transcends Death: Poems for My Beloved Karl . Langer Memorial Committee, Brisbane 1987, ISBN 0-7316-0241-2 .

literature

• Ute Heinen: Gertrude Langer - as an Austrian art historian and emigrant in Australia . In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (Ed.): Crossing Borders: Women, Art and Exile . Verlag Königshausen & Neumann GmbH, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3147-4 , p. 181-202 .
• Judy Hamilton: Influencing the Modern in Brisbane: Gertrude Langer and the Role of Newspaper Art Criticism . In: Queensland Review . tape 20 , no. 2 . Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 203-214 .
• Philipp Strobl: "But the main thing is I had the knowledge"; Gertrude Langer, cultural translation and the emerging art sector in post-war Queensland (Australia) . In: Australian and New Zealand journal of art . tape 18 , no. 1 , 2018, p. 16–30 , doi : 10.1080 / 14434318.2018.1481328 .
• Ute Heinen: Emigration Australia: Ursula Hoff and Gertrude Langer two European art historians and their influence on the development of art history as a scientific discipline on the Australian continent . Gettorf, 2004
• Ian Sinnamon: Modernism and the Genius Loci: Karl Langer and Gertrude Langer OBE . In: Karl Bittman (Ed.): Strauss to Matilda. Viennese in Australia, 1938–1988 . Sydney: The Wenkart Foundation, 1988, ISBN 0-7316-0982-4 , pp. 145-160
• Langer, Gertrude , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Art Historians in Exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , p. 418

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e f} Nancy DH Underhill: Langer, Gertrude (1908–1984) . In: Australian Dictionary of Biography . National Center of Biography, Australian National University, Canberra 2012 ( edu.au [accessed November 25, 2019]).
2. ↑ Ute Heinen: Gertrude Langer - as an Austrian art historian in Australia . In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (ed.): Crossing borders. Women, art and exile . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3147-4 , p. 182 .
3. ↑ Ute Heinen: Gertrude Langer - as an Austrian art historian and emigrant in Australia . In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (ed.): Crossing borders. Women, art and exile. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3147-4 , p. 192-193 .
4. ^ ^{A b} Ute Heinen: Gertrude Langer - as an Austrian art historian and emigrant in Australia . In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (ed.): Crossing borders. Women, art and exile. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3147-4 , p. 196 .
5. ↑ Ute Heinen: Gertrude Langer - as an Austrian art historian and emigrant in Australia . In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedemann, Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (ed.): Crossing borders. Women, art and exile . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3147-4 , p. 197-198 .
6. ↑ Gertrude Langer (née Fröschel). University of Vienna, February 7, 2017, accessed on November 25, 2019 .