Erich Bischof was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899; after studies in his home city and briefly in the UK, he fled the Nazi regime due to his communist beliefs, arriving in England in 1939 (by way of Poland), where he was imprisoned in 1940 as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. In exile he joined the refugee organisation, the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), participating in its exhibition 'Artists Aid Jewry' in 1943, and contributing illustrations to the German émigré journal 'Die Zeitung'. Bischof eventually returned to East Germany in the late 1940s, where he found great difficulty in being recognised as an artist by the new German Democratic Republic.
Graphic designer, printmaker and illustrator Erich Bischof was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899. Initially, he was apprenticed and worked as a bank clerk between 1913 and 1924. However, in 1921, at the age of 21, he decided to pursue his artistic ambitions by taking drawing classes with Hans Baluschek at the Volkshochschule Berlin. He briefly enrolled at the 'Fircroft', a working man's college in Bournville, Birmingham for six months in 1924 before studying woodcarving at the Arts and Crafts College with W. Heisig in Berlin until 1928. In 1929 he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and, after finishing school, of the Assoziation Revolutionärer Bildender Künstler Deutschlands [Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists of Germany] in 1928. In 1931–32 he taught engraving at the Marxist Evening School in Berlin and also created illustrations for the proletarian press. In 1933, he was arrested several times and expelled from the Reich Association of Visual Artists in Germany. As a communist, Bischof was forced to leave Germany following the rise of the Nazi Party, and fled to Prague in 1934, where he worked under the pseudonym E. Arnold, contributing to local communist magazines.
Bischof relocated to London via Poland in 1939. Following the outbreak of the Second World War he was interned as an 'enemy alien' at Onchan Camp on the Isle of Man for six months in 1940, where he created artworks, an example of which is held in the collection of the iMuseum. After his release he worked for various advertising companies, and contributed illustrations to the German émigré journal Die Zeitung (1942–45) and for the respected British art monthly, The Studio. Bischof joined the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), a politically inspired organisation founded by German and Austrian emigrants in London in 1939, which offered cultural support to anti-Nazi German refugees throughout the war, with its aim 'to preserve and develop free German culture'. Bischof designed the cover illustration of the catalogue for the FGLC's Artists Aid Jewry exhibition, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1943. He also contributed five drawings to the exhibition, which included scenes from nature and from his experiences living in Czechoslovakia. A copy of the exhibition catalogue is held in the Tate Archive, showing Bischof's cover.
Bischof eventually returned to East Germany in the late 1940s and settled in Neuenhagen, where he became the mayor between 1948–54. However, he found great difficulty in being recognised as an artist by the DDR. As with many other left-wing artists who returned to East Germany after the war, his art was considered tainted by Western Formalism and 'incompatible with the stern Soviet canon of heroic Realism' (Vinzent 2006, p. 55). Bischof died in Neuenhagen in 1990.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Erich Bischof]
Publications related to [Erich Bischof] in the Ben Uri Library