Fritz (Friedrich) Solomonski was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1899, where he gained a doctorate on German Expressionism, and trained as a painter under Eugen Spiro and Willy Jaeckel. After Hitler came to power, in 1939 Solomonski immigrated to London, before being interned as a so-called enemy alien on the Isle of Man; returning to the capital, from c. 1943-45 he was appointed the first salaried secretary and curator at the Ben Uri Art Society.
Artist, curator and rabbi, Fritz (Friedrich) Solomonski was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1899, where he later gained a doctorate on German Expressionism. He also trained as a painter under Eugen Spiro and Willy Jaeckel, exhibiting with the Juryfreie Kunstschau (Jury-Free Art Show) in the 1920s and with the Akadamie der Künste (Academy of Art).
After Hitler came to power in 1933, a promised solo show with Fritz Gurlitt, a leading gallery, was cancelled, possibly due to Solomonski's Jewish identity; he subsequently confined artistic activities within Jewish cultural organisations and took up religious service to earn a living. Early in 1939 he was advised by the Gestapo to leave Germany (he was working as a rabbi in Elberfeld); he thus fled to England with his wife, Margot, settling in London. In 1940–41 Solomonski was interned as an enemy alien in the so-called ‘artists’ camp’, Hutchinson, on the Isle of Man, where he signed the famous ‘Art Cannot Live Behind Barbed Wire’ letter, published in the New Statesman and Nation in August 1940, pleading for the release of artist internees. German émigré art historian and fellow internee, Klaus Hinrichsen (whose portrait was drawn in camp by Solomonski) described him in his oral testimony (Hinrichsen Family archive) and in his fictionalised account of internment (Hinrichsen, 2008). Alongside other artist internees, including Kurt Schwitters and Fritz Kraemer, Solomonski contributed to the first Hutchinson art exhibition in autumn 1940, including the stencil engraving Elijah and the Angel. A rare religious-themed image, it was inspired by the Old Testament story of Elijah, the first prophet defending the Jewish faith, who was saved from starvation in the desert by an angel sent by God. As Jutta Vinzent stated, ‘Elijah’s strengthening by God so that he might continue his struggle against the cult of Baal can be interpreted as the artist’s own defence against Hitlerism, and hence, by extension, that of the Jewish refugees as a whole. Yet it can also be argued that Solomonski’s engraving is directed against the British authorities that had interned him’ (Vinzent 2009, p. 103).
After his release, Solomonski was appointed Treasurer of the Hampstead Artists' Council and from late 1943 until 1945, the first salaried secretary and curator at the Ben Uri Art Society in Portman Street, where the gallery, which was increasingly supporting émigré artists, relocated in January 1944. An oil version of Elijah and the Angel featured in the opening exhibition. The Jewish Chronicle commented: ‘One must mention in connection with this exhibition, whose success has depended on their efforts, Cyril J. Ross, the gallery's moving spirit […] and F. A. Solomonski, the curator [...], who shows three modernist canvases’ (J.M.S. 1944, p. 16). The previous year the painting was included in the Artists Aid Jewry Exhibition, organised jointly by the FGLC, Austrian Centre (AC) and Jewish Cultural Club at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Solomonski exhibited in Ben Uri's 1945 Autumn Exhibition, where he showed 'some vivid painting in his still-lifes, but his ‘Moses’, an essay in the grand manner, does not come up to expectations’ (Jewish Chronicle 1945, p. 17). He also featured in the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, presenting two landscapes in 1947, of which ‘Richmond Park is by far the better picture’ (A.K.S. 1947, p. 21). Alongside other émigré artists, including Georg Ehrlich, Solomonski participated in the Summer Show at the Leicester Galleries (1947). His first solo London exhibitions were presented at Gallery Jabe on Wigmore Street, followed by the Kensington Art Gallery in 1949, from which the Jewish Chronicle singled out ‘a small and delightful study of Winter, probably one of Solomonski's best works, Yellow Chrysanthemums a canvas of lovely tone, and a striking self-portrait' (A.K.S. 1949, p. 15). Sir Samuel Courtuald, the prominent art collector, acquired Yellow Chrysanthemums in 1947, alongside other two works. Solomonski became minister of Highgate Synagogue and in 1948 he was appointed Joint-Minister of the West Central Liberal Jewish Congregation and Minister of the Liberal Synagogue at Leigh-on-Sea.
Solomonski’s art career stalled in England and he immigrated to the USA in 1954, renaming himself Fred Solomon, and becoming rabbi for Temple Beth Ha Shalom in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. In 1957 he was appointed rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in the Vedado suburb of Havana, during which time he held a solo show at the capital's Palacio des Bellas Artes (1958–9). Leaving Cuba in 1960, he became head of art at Nathaniel Hawthorne College, Rochester, New Hampshire, where he also opened a gallery with his wife. Fred Solomonski died in Rochester, New Hampshire, USA in 1980. Solomonski’s archive, mostly relating to his time in Cuba, is held at the University of New Hampshire while Ben Uri's archives contain unpublished correspondence in German with his mother. In the UK public domain his work is represented in the Ben Uri Collection.
Frederick Solomonski in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Frederick Solomonski]
Publications related to [Frederick Solomonski] in the Ben Uri Library