Born: 1913 Munich, Germany
Died: 1984 London, England
Other name/s: Bianca Treuberg, Bianca Fischler von Treuberg, Bianca Löwenstein, Princess Lowenstein, Bianca Rosoff
Biography
Sculptor Countess Bianca Fischler von Treuberg was born in Munich, Germany in 1913. She was the daughter of Count Ernest Treuberg, Duke of Goyaz Brasileiro, and Countess Kauffmann. She spent her childhood in Florence and Rome and started to sculpt at the age of six. At the age of 12, she first exhibited her work at the Biennale in Rome. As a result, she was invited to attend classes at the Academy of Rome, one of the youngest students to do so. She also studied at the British Academy in Rome. In 1929, she moved to Paris, where she befriended Italian sculptor Alberto Giacometti and the painters André Derain and Balthus, before moving to London and setting up a studio in Drayton Gardens. In 1932 she married Prince Leopold of Löwenstein, who had emigrated from Germany in the 1920s. The couple had one son, Rupert Lowenstein, who would become the Rolling Stones' financial manager. The marriage was short-lived, and in 1937 they divorced. In the mid-1960s, Von Treuberg moved to the USA, where she married the diplomat Peter Rosoff and gave private sculpture classes, later returning to England.
She exhibited under numerous names, including Princess Lowenstein, Bianca Rosoff, and Bianca, which have helped obscure her career as a sculptor, including at the Wildenstein Gallery in London in 1939, with the Free German League of Culture in 1944, and the Ben Uri Gallery in 1945. At the 1939 Wildenstein Gallery exhibition, art critic Iris Brooke noted that Von Treuberg's head statues were particularly striking, praising the 'solid forcefulness' of her treatment, which conveyed both character and strength. Brooke also highlighted Von Treuberg's green bronze of Miss Frances Day, remarking on how effectively she captured the vivacity and movement of her model.
Von Treuberg was commissioned to sculpt heads of Norman Mailer, Byron Janis, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Infanta Marie Antonia de Broganza of Portugal, Sir Victor Schuster, and Trevor Howard, among others. Her portrait bust of Josephine Hertz (Ben Uri Collection) was bequeathed to the collection by the sitter upon her death; a bronze portrait of Field Marshall Sir Claude Auchinleck (1959) is at the National Army Museum, and a bust of the composer Herbert Howells (c. 1965) is held at the Royal College of Music, London. Two bronze portraits of the publisher Harry N. Abrams' two sons, Michael and Robert, were sold at Phillips New York in 2010. Von Treuberg was also commissioned by Seymour Harris, the architect in charge of rebuilding the centre of Birmingham, to design a modern gold-painted fibreglass sculpture for the front of the Trafalgar House office block in Suffolk Street in 1960. Commenting on this piece, she told the Birmingham Daily Post that she had endeavoured to 'emphasise the beautiful simplicity of the design of the main elevations and the shape of the "butterfly" canopy over the shop fronts to Suffolk Street'. She created a further abstract sculpture for the façade of Quebec House in Kingston Upon Thames in 1961. As Bianca Rosoff, she played a small role in the film Maidstone by Norman Mailer in 1970. Bianca von Treuberg died in London, England in 1979. Her work is not currently held in any UK public collections.
Related books
- Jutta Vinzent, 'List of Refugee Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists) From Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945), in Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
- Bianca, Countess von Treuberg, exhibition catalogue (New York: Southampton East Gallery, 1965)
- Iris Brooke, 'Contemporary Art in London', The Sphere, 28 January 1939, p. 27
- 'Sweet Seventeen and Her Sculpture', The Sketch, 31 December 1930, p. 28
- correspondence with Patricia Fernández
Public collections
Related organisations
- Academy of Rome (student)
- Free German League of Culture (exhibitor)
Related web links
Selected exhibitions
- US: From There to Here - Britain's Gain Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2924)
- Southampton East Gallery, New York (1965)
- Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists Ben Uri Art Gallery (1951)
- Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1945)
- Free German League of Culture (1944)
- Exhibition of Sculpture by Bianca Treuberg, London, Wildenstein & Co. (1939)
