Hedi Schoop

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Hedi Schoop with one of her favorite cats, 1957.

Hedi Schoop (born April 3, 1906 in Zurich ; † April 14, 1995 in Van Nuys ) was a German dancer, cabaret artist, sculptor, painter and manufacturer. With her artistic utility ceramics she became a pioneer of the “California Pottery”, which had its heyday in California during and after the Second World War.

From 1929 to 1933 she performed as a dancer and cabaret artist in the Berlin cabarets “ Die Katakombe ” and “ Tingel-Tangel-Theater ”. In 1933 she emigrated to Hollywood in the USA with her first husband Friedrich Hollaender . Since they failed to attempt a cabaret, she turned to sculpture. She founded a factory in which she produced artistic utility ceramics according to her own designs from 1940 to 1958, with which she was very successful on the market.

Life

Early years

Hedi (Hedwig) Schoop was born on April 3, 1906 in Zurich as the daughter of Friedrich Maximilian Schoop (1871–1924) and Emma Olga Schoop, born. Böppli (1873–1959) born. On her father's side, Hedi came from a family of scholars, professors and teachers; her grandfather Ulrich Schoop (1830–1911) was a teacher at the Zurich School of Applied Arts . Hedi's father was an editor, among others at the “Zürcher Post”, and president of the Grand Hotel Dolder and, as his daughter Trudi reports, a respected and valued man in Zurich's intellectual circles. Hedi's free-thinking and unconventional mother came from " Toggenburg ischen miracle doctors" and was a warm-hearted woman with an insatiable thirst for freedom and life. The family lived on the Zürichberg , where the Dolder hotel was also located.

Hedi was the third of four children. Her two older siblings were the painter Max Schoop (1902–1984) and the dancer Trudi Schoop (1903–1999). Her younger brother was the composer Paul Schoop (1909–1976). The children were raised in a free and informal atmosphere, and the parents encouraged their children's artistic development, all of whom took up artistic professions.

Like her sister Trudi, Hedi received acting lessons in her youth. She also studied sculpture, architecture, painting and fashion design at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and the Reimann School in Berlin. She probably received her dance training from her sister Trudi, who was three years older than her, who opened her own dance school in Zurich in 1924.

  • Hedi Schoop's mother at the age of 84, 1957.

  • Grand Hotel Dolder, around 1905.

Advert, 1930.

Berlin

The catacomb

When Werner Finck and Hans Deppe opened the cabaret " Die Katakombe " in Berlin on October 16, 1929 , the ensemble included the actors Theo Lingen , the dancers Trudi and Hedi Schoop and the illustrator Erich Ohser . Hedi Schoop performed parodic pantomimes such as "The Mannequin", "The Traffic Schupo" and "The Juggler", and at times together with her sister Trudi as a grotesque dance duo, including the pantomime "Look-See-Kieken" and a "Parody on the Mensendieck exercises, a gymnastics method valued in the dressing rooms of the body-conscious ladies. "

Tingel-Tangel Theater

Exterior facade of the former Tingel-Tangel-Theater, 2011.

When the “Katakombe” artists' collective broke up at the end of 1930, Hedi switched to Friedrich Hollaender , who opened the “ Tingel-Tangel-Theater ” (TTT) on January 7, 1931 . Stars of the premiere program “Tingel-Tangel” were Dutch ex-wife Blandine Ebinger , an actress and chanson singer, the actors Hermann Schaufuss , Hubert von Meyerinck , Hans Deppe and Ellen Schwanneke , the dancers Grit and Ina van Elben and Hollaender's new discovery - Hedi Schoop. Marlene Dietrich came as a surprise guest, who had become world-famous not least because of Hollaender's songs, and who now sang one of his songs: “ I'm set for love from head to toe ”, accompanied by the master himself on the piano. In March 1931 "The Second Program" followed, in which Hedi Schoop fell into a hundred-year slumber while listening to a boring radio program while listening to a boring radio program. This was followed by the two revues "Spuk in der Villa Stern" (September 1931), a costume party at which the guests appeared in the masks of well-known personalities, and "Allez-Hopp!" (December 1931), an artist show under the motto: Das Life, a variety show. This revue was discussed by the “Pope of Critics” Alfred Polgar in the Weltbühne . He said about Hedi Schoop:

“Hedi Schoop appears as a Spanish dancer who is neither a dancer nor a Spanish woman and who admits this fact in the lyrics without any reserve. This kind of mockery of the variety has often been faked, but rarely in such an effective trinity of temperament, droll and grace, with such lively physical humor and so juicy parody. The nice thing about Holländer's troops is that since no one is playing down their trivial task, everyone takes the fun they have to make seriously. Humor on stage is also a job and not the easiest. Only when it is so practiced and precise as in the Tingel-Tangel does this impression of lightness and effortlessness come about, which makes everything appear like a high-spirited moment improvisation. So, at least 101 percent of her will to have an effect and the speed that she has in her, the delicate Hedi Schoop turns to Grandanutta, the Spanish dancer. "

In 1932 Friedrich Hollaender and Hedi Schoop married, an event that Hollaender mentions in a subordinate sentence in his memoirs: "Hedi Schoop, who was now my wife". The two last revues of the TTT, “Höchst Eisenbahn!” (September 15, 1932) and “Once Upon a Time” (late 1932), already seem like a “swan song for the Weimar Republic”. In the revue “Höchste Eisenbahn!” Hedi Schoop was seen in the ensemble appearances in the numbers “Bahnhof”, “Strohwitwen” and “The strangers are coming !!!” and played in a funny number “The innocence of the country”. At the beginning of January 1933 Hollaender was forced to give up the leadership of the TTT in view of the impending seizure of power by the Nazis. The theater was carried on by others until it was closed by the Nazis in 1935.

emigration

On February 27, 1933, on the night of the Reichstag fire , Hedi Schoop and Friedrich Hollaender fled Germany to escape persecution by the Nazis because of Dutch “non-Aryan” descent. They went to Paris, where they lived in the Hotel Ansonia on avenue de la Grande Armée, “nest of the displaced, refuge for the dispossessed, assembly point, temporary camp, incubator for all kinds of premature births, from plans for the future to suicide ideas” (there they met Billy Wilder and Peter Lorre ). After a grueling wait, the immigration papers for the USA finally arrived. Through the mediation of UFA producer Erich Pommer , whom Hollaender knew from working on the film “ The Blue Angel ”, the couple finally received their visas for the USA, and Hollaender a three-month contract with 20th Century Fox . In mid-May 1933 they started the crossing to the USA with the passenger steamer " Aquitania ".

Hollywood

The couple lived in Hollywood at 3168 Lindo Street and later on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the Hollywood Hills . Since they had only emigrated on visitor visas, they had to stay in Mexico for a few weeks for technical reasons and from there undertake legal immigration to the USA. The German director Wilhelm Dieterle and his wife, who were American citizens, supported them in this cumbersome process .

Hollaender, who now called himself Frederick Hollander, had a three-month contract for the time being, but since this was not extended, he had to look for other ways of securing subsistence.

Frederick Hollaender's Tingel-Tangel-Theater

In this situation, the couple tried to revive the Berlin “Tingel-Tangel-Theater” in Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard as an English-language cabaret in exile under the name “Frederick Hollaender's Tingel-Tangel-Theater” (TTT). On May 3, 1934, they opened their theater with the program "Allez-Oop" (based on the model of "Allez-Hopp!"), And everything that had a reputation in Hollywood streamed to the premiere. In November they brought out their second program “All Aboard” based on the model of “Höchst Eisenbahn!”. The initial success turned out to be a flash in the pan, the new TTT should not be a lasting success. When Hollaender received the offer from RKO to direct a western and write the film music, he gave up the TTT.

Hedi Schoop Art Creations

Between 1935 and 1939 Hedi Schoop and Friedrich Hollaender rented "a spacious house on a Hollywood hill". After their joint cabaret project had failed, the multi-talented young woman turned to sculpture in search of a new field of activity, which she had studied (along with other subjects) in her youth. At first, just for her own pleasure, she modeled dolls from plaster of paris and wax, which she painted and draped with fashionable clothes. During the successful exhibition of her creations in the renowned furniture store "Barker Bros." in Los Angeles, she received the suggestion to make the dolls from a more durable material, and she decided to use ceramics as her future medium.

According to Hollaender, the "little house" in which they lived was found

“Two working corners for Hedi, who suddenly threw herself on the ceramics with all her inherent urge to express herself artistically. And with such vehemence that it was a miracle that the figures did not break the arms and handles under the impact. The delightful bizarre structures were created in her pottery room, which - when she later has her own factory - will flood the market. For the time being she has to burn her cheerful peasant women and sheep - I called them "Schiefchen" because they never got straight - in some furnace. And Ernö Verebes , once celebrated dance star, temporarily unemployed, goes out of business together with Siegfried Arno , ditto, selling them from door to door ”.

After success set in, Hedi opened in 1940 in North Hollywood, Satsuma Avenue, a larger production facility, the "Hedi Schoop Art Creations". Hedi Schoop met the taste of the time with her artistic utility ceramics. Her repertoire included figures that she designed as flower holders, flower pots or candlesticks, but also vases, bowls, bowls, lamps, ashtrays and soap holders. In addition, there was great demand for domestic ceramics during and after the Second World War because the USA was cut off from imports from abroad. The ceramic objects of the "grande dame of California ceramics design", which were also suitable as gift items, were very popular. In addition to Hedi Schoop, there were also a number of other producers who were able to assert themselves successfully in this field, including former employees who knew how to take advantage of the opportunity.

Due to the rapid development of the business, Hedi Schoop soon had to hire employees in order to be able to meet the demand. However, she largely kept the design in her own hands. In the late 1940s she employed over 50 people in her company and shipped 30,000 articles annually. Hedi Schoop also offered job-seeking emigrants a refuge in her workshop. The journalist Ferdinand Kahn worked as a “casting master” for her and Ernö Verebes as a “mold maker”. Others were busy painting the ceramic figures, including the artist Sylvester Schäffer , the dancer Gitta Wallerstein nee. Perl, the actress Illa Rhoden and the cabaret artist Trude Berliner , who was married to Hedi's brother, the painter Max Schoop .

In the 1950s, the domestic ceramics industry came under increasing pressure from cheap Japanese imports. When Hedi Schoops company burned down in 1958 as a result of the explosion of a tunnel kiln , it ceased operations. She worked for a while as a designer for "The California Cleminsons", a former competitor, before turning away completely from ceramics and focusing on painting.

family

On November 10, 1932, Hedi Schoop married Friedrich Hollaender in Berlin , who had been married to the actress and chanson singer Blandine Ebinger from 1919 to 1926 . In 1938, after six years of marriage, the couple had drifted apart. Each of the two artists pursued their own interests, and the monomaniac Dutchman, who mostly only mentions Hedi in passing in his memoirs, was in any case not made for a lasting relationship. They got divorced and Hollaender drew the conclusion: "What stayed and remains is a nice friendship and a great understanding."

Hedi Schoop's mother followed her daughter into emigration in 1939 or 1940, as did her two brothers Max Schoop and Paul Schoop . At the time of the 1940 census, the mother and her two unmarried sons Max and Paul lived together in a rented apartment in Los Angeles at 8764 Lookout Mountain Drive, in the Hollywood Hills .

In 1943 Hedi Schoop married the film actor Ernö Verebes (or Ernst Verebes) for the second time . The marriage resulted in a son, Tony (Anthony) Verebes (* 1946), a well-known photographer in Topanga near Los Angeles. Hedi's sister Trudi did not come to Los Angeles until 1951, after the sudden death of her husband Hans Wickihalder (1896–1951). She settled in the Van Nuys district and worked as a dance therapist.

Retirement

Hedi Schoop and her second husband Ernö Verebes lived at 5757 Ranchito Avenue in Van Nuys , a district of Los Angeles, where Hedi's sister Trudi Schoop also lived. Ernö Verebes did not manage to build on his earlier successes in Hollywood. He worked as a mold maker in his wife's factory and occasionally played small film roles. Around 1954 he suffered a stroke that led to paralysis on one side. He died at Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills in 1971 at the age of 68 . Friedrich Hollaender, Hedi Schoop's first husband, died in Munich in 1976 at the age of 79.

In Los Angeles, Hedi had her next of kin around her who had followed her “voluntarily” into emigration. Her mother died in 1959, her brother Paul in 1976 and Max in 1984. In 1974 Hedi contributed the illustrations for her sister Trudi's book "Won't you join the dance?" Trudi, who was three years her senior, survived Hedi by five years and died in 1999. Hedi Schoop died at the age of 89 on April 14, 1995 in Van Nuys. She was cremated as requested, a grave does not exist. Her work has survived to this day, her figurines and ceramic objects are coveted collector's items.

plant

Ceramics

Hedi Schoops artistic small ceramics were not intended for the art market, but should also serve a practical purpose as utility ceramics and thus combine the beautiful with the useful. Hedi Schoop hit the nerve of the pragmatic thinking Americans and was able to quickly conquer a broader market.

Most popular were her figurines, which were produced as individual pieces, but were usually bought in pairs and could be used as flower holders, flower pots or candlesticks. The figures, apparently frozen in the middle of the movement, tilt their heads teasingly to one side and mostly wear fluffy, floor-length clothing. They represent rustic Tyrolean, Dutch and Chinese farmer couples, often with baskets or back carriers, but also rather graceful couples of dancers and musicians or elegant women in historical costumes. The individual figures are often roughly outlined, the faces are sketched with a few lines and the clothes are monochrome, so that new variants of the same figures emerged through different colors. In contrast, there are also detailed female figures with elaborate painting.

In addition to her figurines, Hedi Schoop also created table and wall vases, bowls, bowls, lamps, ashtrays and soap holders. The two original TV lamps "Skyscraper" (with a bundle of tilting skyscrapers) and "Comedy-Tragedy" (with two theater masks) are remarkable. When a pair of figures sold well, the enterprising artist liked to create an entire line of products with the same decor, taking into account the customer's urge to collect.

  • Chinese farmer couple.

  • “Peace”, ceramics, small sculptures.

  • "Mother cat", small ceramics.

painting

Nothing is publicly known about Hedi Schoop's painterly work. For the book of her sister Trudi "Won't you join the dance?", In which she wrote down her dance therapy experiences with mentally ill people, she contributed cheerful and lively illustrations:

  • Trudi Schoop ; Peggy Mitchell; Hedi Schoop (illustration): Won't you join the dance? A dancer's essay into the treatment of psychosis. Palo Alto, Calif. 1974 Excerpt: .
  • Trudi Schoop ; Peggy Mitchell; Hedi Schoop (illustration); Marigna Gerig (translation): Come and dance with me !: come, come on, come on, come on, come and dance with me !; an attempt to help the psychotic person through the elements of dance. Zurich 2006, excerpt . - German translation of #Schoop 1974 .

Anecdotal

On the run

In February 1933 the apartment of Friedrich Hollaender and Hedi Schoop was searched by the Gestapo. You will be warned in good time and will take a taxi to the train station. Hollaender recalls:

“I look at Hedi. How brave she is! She didn't need any of that. Not fear and not pretense. She is so blonde. But she got involved with one who is very black. Now it hangs in the cobweb. But she wasn't going to get free for anything in the world. Some have done that.
Holla - a barrier. ... They are human legs that are slowly moving towards us. Human legs in brown pants. A chain of Nazis stretched across the embankment, holding each other's hands like a police cordon. ... Apparently they want to hold up the car for a few more meters. - Hedi then presses me down from the seat and onto the floor of the car. Throws her coat over me. I feel the chauffeur apply the brakes under my knees. With one eye I manage to watch Hedi. She rolls the window halfway down, shakes her little lion's mane, flashes with all her thirty-two snow-white teeth and calls out: Hail, boys! Heil, do them, break the chain and release the car. "

On the way to Paris on the train, the couple was afraid that Hollaender might be arrested as "non-Aryans". Hedi should write down the names of friends who could save him from the clutches of the Nazis. "Hedi looked up for a moment:" Shouldn't we perhaps think that all the ones we are so diligently writing down here could - - - skip? "-" You look too black. We have friends. ”-“ Yesterday, ”says Hedi,“ yesterday we had friends. ”- She looks so tired. So fallen off. "

Unemployed in Hollywood

In 1935 Hollaender was unemployed for eleven months. In his memoirs he writes: "The savings went up frighteningly quickly, eleven months is not a sticky stick, and Hedi often brought bread and a sausage under her coat from the supermarket, if you know what I mean."

Hedi Schoop becomes self-employed

When Hedi Schoop started making pottery, the domestic situation also changed for Hollaender: “Hedi does not have much time in her new occupation to take care of my music pottery. Doubly understandable. She was very satisfied with the desire to create and knead something with her own hands. On the other hand, the husband's "sound creations" could be heard throughout the house, and every now and then one would hear the shout "Very pretty" from the distant kneader, as an encouragement. - But she never failed to tastefully model the huge sandwich panels for my bridge evenings with the same artistic hand. "

Hedi Schoop's mother

In 1957 Hedi Schoop and her mother visited their hometown Zurich again. On this occasion they met the Zurich writer Carl Seelig . In his essay "Original characters from the Schoop family" he reports:

“« Mutti »Schoop, née Emma Böppli, will leave nothing behind for once but the memory of a splendidly vital, adaptable and loving mother of many artist children. In her way, however, she is also an original, filled with an irrepressible thirst for freedom and life, which today, at the age of 84, seems hardly less fiery than in her youth. "

At home with Hedi Schoop

Hedi Schoop said of her home in Los Angeles:

“We have six cats and a dog, a cozy big house with the wildest and most fun garden you can imagine. And we have a black cook who is purple-black and always drinks black coffee, who sits under the orange tree and laughs so loudly that all life is frozen in shock. "

literature

life and work

  • Eric Bradley: Hedi Schoop. In: Antique Trader Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide 2013 Cincinnati 2012, page 230-234, online: . - 4 pages with illustrations.
  • Sharon Chaiklin: Schoop, Trudi. John A. Garraty (Editor): American national biography, Supplement 2. New York 2005, pp. 505–507.
  • Donald-Brian Johnson: Hedi vs. Kay: The Case Of The "Copied" Ceramics. Design Trends In The Mid-20th Century. In: Antiques & Auction News , April 25 2012, online: .
  • Volker Kühn :  Schoop, Hedi. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 469 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ernest Sharpe Jr: Hedi Schoop , 2012, online: Find A Grave .
  • Rudolf Vierhaus (editor): German biographical encyclopedia. 9. Schlumberger - Thiersch. Munich 2008, page 179.

swell

  • Swantje Greve: Werner Finck and the "catacomb": a cabaret artist in the sights of the Gestapo. Berlin 2015.
  • Friedrich Hollaender : From head to toe. My life with text and music. Munich 1965.
  • Hans Kafka : Hollywood Calling - Hans Kafka Speaking . In: Structure , Volume 7, Number 38, September 19, 1941 page 25, online: .
  • Hans Kafka : Hollywood Calling… . In: Structure , Volume 9, Number 51, December 17, 1943 page 10, online: .
  • Swantje Kuhfuss-Wickenheiser: The Reimann School in Berlin and London 1902–1943: a Jewish company for art and design training with an international character until it was destroyed by the Hitler regime. Aachen 2009, pages 566-567.
  • Volker Kühn : Twilight of mockery: of the long death of the great little Friedrich Hollaender. Berlin 1996.
  • Volker Kühn :  Schoop, Trudi. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 468 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Bruno Oetterli: The two lives of Trudi Schoop. In: Music, Dance and Art Therapy , Volume 20, 2009, pages 162–164.
  • Alfred Polgar : Allez hopp! In: The world stage , the 28th year, the first half of 1932, No. 2, January 12, page 76-77, online: .
  • Carl Seelig : Original characters from the Schoop family. In: Thurgauer Jahrbuch , 33rd year, 1958, pages 95–110. ( e-periodica )
  • Kay Less : "In life, more is taken from you than given ...". Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 .

Web links

Commons : Hedi Schoop  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ #Oetterli 2009 , page 162.
  2. ↑ Friedrich Maximilian Schoop's brothers Max Ulrich Schoop and Paul Schoop were well-known technicians and inventors. Max Ulrich Schoop's son was the sculptor Uli Schoop .
  3. ↑ #Schoop 1974 , #Seelig 1958 , page 100.
  4. ↑ #Schoop 1974 , # Kühn 2007.1 .
  5. ↑ # Kühn 2007.1 .
  6. ↑ Hepcat Restorations, Hedi Schoop (without proof) - Directory of the pupils of the Reimann school, # Kuhfuss-Wickenheiser 2009 , pages 511-580: no entry for Hedi Schoop.
  7. ↑ #Chaiklin 2005 , page 506th
  8. ↑ #Greve 2015 , pp. 12–15.
  9. ↑ # Kühn 2007.1 .
  10. ↑ # Brüning 2009 , page 6.
  11. ↑ #Greve 2015 , page 13.
  12. ↑ # Hollaender 1965 , pages 256-257.
  13. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , page 66.
  14. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 260.
  15. ↑ # Polgar 1932 .
  16. ↑ # Hollaender 1965 , pages 262–263.
  17. ↑ # Kühn 2007.1 , #Lareau 2004 , page 329.
  18. ↑ #Lareau 2004 , page 329-330.
  19. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , page 84.
  20. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 293.
  21. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , page 87.
  22. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , page 93.
  23. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , page 93. - Hollaender erroneously names the “ Queen Mary ” as the ship , which was only used in 1936 ( #Hollaender 1965 , page 318).
  24. ↑ # Hollaender 1965 , page 327; Friedrich Hollaender, Declaration of Intention, October 17, 1935 , message from Anthony Verebes dated November 10, 2015.
  25. ↑ # Hollaender 1965 , pp. 328–329.
  26. ↑ # Kühn 1996 , pp. 97, 138.
  27. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 347.
  28. ^ Message from Anthony Verebes dated November 10, 2015.
  29. ↑ #Johnson 2012 .
  30. ↑ #Johnson 2012 . - According to Hedi Schoop's own statement, the workforce of her company still consisted of 30 employees in 1957 ( #Seelig 1958 , page 109).
  31. ↑ #Less 2011 , page 99.
  32. ↑ #Kafka 1941 , #Kafka 1943 .
  33. ^ Message from Anthony Verebes dated November 10, 2015.
  34. ↑ #Johnson 2012 .
  35. ↑ Friedrich Hollaender, Declaration of Intention, October 17, 1935 .
  36. ↑ # Hollaender 1965 , pp. 351-352.
  37. ↑ ancestry.com .
  38. ↑ #Sharpe 2012 .
  39. ^ Anthony Verebes Photography, homepage .
  40. ^ Theater Lexicon, Hans Wickihalder .
  41. ^ Message from Anthony Verebes dated November 10, 2015.
  42. ↑ Message from Anthony Verebes from November 10, 2015, Steffi-Line, Ernst Verebes .
  43. ↑ #Johnson 2012 .
  44. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 283.
  45. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 284.
  46. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 292.
  47. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 331.
  48. ↑ #Hollaender 1965 , page 347-348.
  49. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 100.
  50. ↑ #Seelig 1958 , page 109.
personal data
SURNAME Schoop, Hedi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoop, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-American dancer, cabaret artist, sculptor, painter and manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 1995
Place of death Van Nuys