Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Elsa Fraenkel artist

Elsa Fraenkel (née Rothschild) was born into a Jewish family in Bensheim, Germany in 1892 and trained at the Karlsruhe Academy, beginning to sculpt in 1914 and moving to Hanover in 1918 following her marriage. After her divorce in 1933, and the rise of Nazism in Germany, she immigrated to London in 1935, initially establishing a studio in St John's Wood. During the Blitz she relocated to Essex; postwar, she exhibited her portrait sculpture regularly with Ben Uri and other London galleries, before immigrating to India at the end of her life.

Born: 1892 Bensheim, Germany

Died: 1975 Bangalore, India

Year of Migration to the UK: 1935

Other name/s: Else Rothschild, Elsa Rothschild, Else Fraenkel, Betty Elisabeth Rothschild, Elizabeth Dane


Biography

Sculptor Elsa Fraenkel (née Rothschild) was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Bensheim, Germany on 25 August 1892. She studied drawing in Brussels, History of Art at Heidelberg University, and drawing and sculpture at Karlsruhe Academy, beginning to sculpt in 1914. Following marriage to lawyer Georg Fraenkel, she relocated to Hanover in 1918, becoming part of the circle centred on renowned Dadaist Kurt Schwitters. She specialised in portrait sculpture, and although not commissioned, exhibited widely in Germany. From the mid-1920s she moved between Hanover and her Paris studio, studying under Jacques Loutchansky, associating with sculptors, including Brâncuși, Maillol, Despiau and Léger, and corresponding with Piet Mondrian. In 1928 Schwitters dedicated a collage, incorporating the word PARIS, to 'Frau Fränkel' (now Ben Uri Collection). Influenced by Despiau's portraits and ancient art in the Louvre, she worked with bronze, pewter and silver. In October 1931 her Frauernmaske, shown at GEDOK, Bremen, was the cover image for the periodical Kunst und Mode. In 1932 Galerie Albert Flechteim in Berlin displayed the mask in their Junge Künstler exhibition and Fraenkel also shared an exhibition with Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, co-founder of Die Brucke, at the avant-garde Gesellschaft der Freunde Junger Kunst ('Society of Friends of Young Art') in Braunschweig. When the society was dissolved in 1933 under National Socialism, works were given to the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, including Fraenkel's Head of a Chinaman (Chungsen Chou). Fraenkel divorced in the same year and, in 1935, fleeing Nazi persecution, she immigrated to London with her son. She studied sculpture at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, initially supported by her parents, renting a flat in Notting Hill, west London. In 1938, when her mother and daughter joined her, she established a home/studio at 54 Charlbert Court, St John's Wood, north London. She maintained links with refugee circles, sculpting a bust of Anna Schwab (German Jewish Aid Committee). In 1935 she exhibited six works with the Leicester Galleries. The following year she showed Chungsen Chou in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and participated in Ben Uri's annual open show. Ben Uri subsequently commissioned her portrait of Haham, Sir Moses Gaster, Head of the Sephardi community. Fraenkel showed Young Frenchman at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Chungsen Chou at the 36th Exhibition of the Women's International Art Club, gifting another cast to Leighton House (now Ben Uri Collection).

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Fraenkel escaped internment (owing to her son's work on Mosquito bombers); her supporters included Leicester Galleries' co-founder, Cecil Philips: 'I have every reason to believe that she is highly honourable and respectable; and that she is loyal to the country of her adoption.' Although less prolific during the war (her income from Germany was lost, and her identity was briefly stolen by a German spy), Fraenkel's bronze head of émigrée art historian Dr Stella Kramrisch was exhibited in the United Artists' Exhibition, at the Royal Academy, in January 1940, and in May The Times praised her among 51 artists (including fellow émigrée sculptor, Dora Gordine, with whom she shared an interest in non-western subjects) at the British Art Centre, Stafford Gallery, St. James's. During the Blitz, she relocated to Essex. In 1941 she exhibited two works in the Royal Academy Summer Show and showed her bust of Minna Tobler in Ben Uri's re-opening exhibition in January 1944. Postwar, Fraenkel continued to exhibit earlier works and maintained links with Ben Uri, participating in the 1947 group show and exhibiting a bust of distinguished South East Asian art historian Sir Reginald Le May in the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition 1851–1951 Art Section, part of the 1951 Festival of Britain. After befriending Ethel Solomon, Ben Uri's Chairwoman (1943–66), Fraenkel sculpted a head of her young daughter, Shirley, exhibited in Ben Uri's Fortieth Anniversary exhibition (1956). Fraenkel also showed regularly with the Women's International Art Club during the late 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s.

Naturalised in 1947, Fraenkel took an English surname at random from a telephone directory, becoming Elizabeth Dane in daily life. In 1948, the Jewish Museum, New York, accepted her bust of Dr Goldschmidt, and from 1949–50 she taught portrait drawing and sculpture at Morley College, London. Around 1950, Fraenkel befriended former suffragette and activist, Sylvia Pankhurst, who had close ties with Ethiopia. The Women's Library archive illuminates Fraenkel's role in organising an exhibition of Pankhurst's early artworks in 1959. Fraenkel also organised several Ethiopian-related events during the 1950s and became a Council member for the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon. In 1951 she sculpted a posthumous head of Ethiopian Princess Tsahai, Emperor Haile Selassie's daughter. Elected to the Royal Society of Arts in 1954, in 1961 her silver bronze bust of Queen Sirikit of Thailand was presented to the Royal Palace, Bangkok; she also sculpted a portrait of Pandit Nehru, first Indian Prime Minister. Eventually, when in failing health, Fraenkel joined her daughter in India, leaving most of her sculpture and archive with family in Britain. Elsa Fraenkel died in Bangalore, India on 13 May 1975. Her work is in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Hove Museum and Tate.

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson, ''I hear only what my eyes tell me': Two Jewish Women Émigré Sculptors: Else Fraenkel (1892–1975) and Erna Nonnenmacher (1889–1989)', PMSA - Public Monuments and Sculpture Association and 3rd Dimension Annual Conference (2016), Émigré Sculptors in Britain (1500–2016) (unpublished conference paper, 2017)
  • 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
  • Hans Hildebrandt, Die Frau als Künstlerin (Berlin: Rudolf Mosse Buchverlag, 1928) p. 184

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Central School of Art and Design (student)
  • Essex Art Club (vice-president)
  • GEDOK (Gemeinschaft der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfördernden) (member, Hanover)
  • Heidelberg University (student)
  • Karlsruhe Academy (student)
  • Morley College (staff member)
  • Royal Society of Arts (Fellow)
  • The Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon (council member)
  • Women's International Art Club (exhibitor)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Society of Friends of Young Art, Schlossmuseum Braunschweig (2019–20)
  • Art-Exit: 1939 – A Very Different Europe, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2019)
  • Highlights of the Ben Uri Collection: 2002 Onwards, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2018)
  • German Refugee Artists to Britain since 1900, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2017)
  • Kunst der Avantgarde in Hanover 1912–1933, Sprengel Museum, Hanover (2017)
  • Refugees: The Lives of Others – Selected Works by Eva Frankfurther (1930–1959), Ben Uri Gallery, London (2017)
  • Essex Art Club Annual Exhibition (1965)
  • Society of Portrait Sculptors Exhibition, London (1964)
  • The Arts Unite East And West
  • An Exhibition of Work by Past and Present Members of the Royal India Ceylon and Pakistan Society, Foyles Gallery (c. 1962)
  • Selection from the Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1960)
  • Essex Art Club Exhibition, Royal Exchange, London (1957)
  • Contemporary Jewish Artists Exhibition, Zion House, Hampstead, London (1956)
  • Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1956)
  • Women's International Art Club, London (1953, 1950-51, 1946-49, 1940-42, 1937-39)
  • Anglo-Jewish Exhibition 1851–1951 Art Section, Ben Uri Society, London (1951)
  • Contemporary Jewish Artists, Exhibition of Paintings Sculptures Drawings, Ben Uri Society (1950)
  • Modern Masters and Artists of Today, 20 Brook Street (1948)
  • Painting by Walter Trier and Sculpture by Else Fraenkel and Erna Nonnenmacher, Ben Uri Art Gallery, London (1947)
  • Royal Academy Summer exhibition (1943, 1942, 1941, 1940)
  • Sculpture and Drawings, British Art Center, Stafford Gallery, London (1940)
  • Leicester Galleries, London (1938–1939)
  • Coronation Exhibition, Leicester Galleries, London (1937)
  • 36th Exhibition of the Women's International Art Club, London (1937)
  • Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery (1936)
  • Royal Academy Summer exhibition (1936)
  • Sculpture by Else Fraenkel, Leicester Galleries, London (1935)
  • Elsa Fraenkel, Kunsthandlung Victor Hartberg, Berlin (1932)
  • Gesellschaft der Freunde Junger Kunst, Braunschweig (1932)
  • Junge Künstler, Galerie Albert Flechteim, Berlin (1932)
  • GEDOK, Bremen (1931)
  Elsa Fraenkel
   
Ben Uri collection

Elsa Fraenkel in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Elsa Fraenkel]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Elsa Fraenkel] in the Ben Uri Library