Joseph Carl was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1906. After studying at the Vienna Academy of Art, Carl designed sets for opera, theatre and political cabarets in Vienna. In order to escape Nazi persecution, in 1938 he immigrated to London to work as a set designer, and was employed by many prestigious venues, including the Palace Theatre and London Palladium, before settling in Israel permanently in 1963, where he continued to work on sets and costumes for theatre and cinema.
Set designer and artist Joseph Carl was born Karl Josefovicz into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) on 11 February 1906. After completing his studies at the Vienna Academy of Art under architect and designer Oskar Strnad, he established himself as a set designer and began a successful career at the Vienna Volksoper opera house, also designing for the theatre and political cabarets.
In order to escape Nazi persecution, following the annexation of Austria (Anschluss), Carl immigrated to England in 1938, where his younger brother Fritz Joss, a political cartoonist, had moved in 1933. In London, Carl became a member of the Austrian Centre (AC, a left-leaning cultural forum for Austrian refugees) and was involved in many of its activities. In 1939 he participated in the First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors, organised jointly with the Free German League of Culture (FGLC, a similar refugee organisation to the AC, for German-speakers) held at the Wertheim Gallery, and in 1945 he took part in the AC’s Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings & Sculptures at Foyle’s Gallery. In addition, he produced the décor for performances held at the Austrian exile theatre Das Laterndl, which opened in 1939 at the address of the Austrian Centre – 126 Westbourne Terrace in Paddington – before moving north to Finchley Road and Eton Avenue. From 1938, Carl perused his profession as a stage designer in London, receiving acclaim and critical praise for his work on plays held at prestigious venues, including the Drury Lane Theatre, London Palladium, Palace Theatre, and the Hippodrome, as well as at the newly-founded Glyndebourne Opera in Sussex. In 1940 he also worked for the London Ballet, designing the sets of La Leçon Apprise by Wendy Toye. In 1941 Carl designed sets for George Black’s ‘brilliant revue’ Black Vanities held at Victoria Palace, receiving enthusiastic comments in The Stage: ‘There is a note of distinction throughout the show, and the novelty of some of Joseph Carl’s settings is none the less effective for being artistic and satisfying instead of being merely bizarre. […] Carl’s settings for the opening and the finale are as striking as anything Mr Black has yet put on the stage, and clearly this young Austrian-born refugee has much to give us under the all-embracing heading of décor’ (17 April 1941, p. 1952). In 1942 he designed sets for the opera Blossom Time, in Aberdeen, Scotland, and starring Richard Tauber, a fellow Austrian émigré. The following year, he designed the sets for the musical It’s Time to Dance, starring Jack Buchanan, at the Winter Garden in the East End. Carl felt that his style shifted through the influence of living in England, once stating that: 'My use of colours is far less crude than it was when I first settled down in England.' He was also influenced by the English landscape and countryside, making countless drawings, and was especially inspired by living in Hampstead, with its wooded heath. Carl became a naturalised a British subject in 1948, the year in which he worked for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, designing costumes for their production of Othello.
In 1952 he designed Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore produced by Peter Ebert for the first International Festival of the Music and the Arts at Wexford in Ireland. The same year, he visited the recently founded State of Israel for the first time, where he remained until 1956, preparing several sets for the Chamber Theatre and the renowned Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv. Here he was known as Joe Karl. By the early 1960s, Carl was working across England and Holland, designing for the Netherland Dance Groupe, before permanently returning to Israel in 1963, where he continued to design sets for theatre and cinema. He also drew many street scenes and depicted synagogues, congregations at prayer, and Jewish cemeteries, using different media, such as ink and watercolour.
Joseph Carl died in Israel in 1993. In 2016, Gilden's Art Gallery, London, held a posthumous exhibition of Carl's drawings, which had been found in an abandoned attic, along with photographs by Roei Greenberg, to explore his connection to Hampstead, and to bring these 'forgotten' drawings back into public view. Carl's Dublin vignette, from Ben Uri's permanent collection was included in a 2018 exhibition at Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, entitled Out of Austria: Austrian Émigré Artists to the UK. Carl's work is held in UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection and the V&A.
Joseph Carl in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Joseph Carl]
Publications related to [Joseph Carl] in the Ben Uri Library