Born: 1884 Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)
Died: 1967 Salzburg, Austria
Year of Migration to the UK: 1939
Other name/s: Felix Albrecht Hirsch, Felix A. Harta, Felix Harta, Felix Albrecht-Harta
Biography
Painter Felix Albrecht Harta (né Hirsch) was born into a Jewish family in Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) on 2 July 1884. He grew up in Vienna and initially studied architecture at the city’s Technische Hochschule before taking lessons from Hans von Hayek at the Art Colony in Dachau. In 1906, he enrolled at the Munich Art Academy. According to his grandson, Larry Heller, Harta changed his surname from Hirsch during his time at the Technische Hochschule. While the exact reason for this decision is unknown, possible explanations include a desire to distance himself from his strict and wealthy father, Moritz Hirsch, or to avoid antisemitic discrimination, which was already apparent in Vienna and Munich years before the Anschluss. In 1908, Harta studied at the Académie Vitti in Paris before returning to Vienna in 1909, where he became active in modern art circles, befriending Anton Faistauer, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Franz Wiegele, and Oskar Kokoschka, among others. That year, Kokoschka painted his portrait, now in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC. Harta regularly exhibited at the Vienna Secession and was closely associated with the Neukunstgruppe (New Art Group). In 1911, he and his future wife, Elisabeth Hermann, helped Klimt relocate his studio to a small Biedermeier cottage, now known as Klimt’s Last Villa. The garden pavilion was rented to Klimt by Harta’s in-laws, Josef and Helene Hermann.
During the First World War, Harta volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian army and, on Klimt’s recommendation, became an official war artist attached to the War Press Headquarters. He produced numerous works depicting pilots, airfields, and rural landscapes in the Italian war zone and Eastern Galicia. After the war, he settled in Salzburg, where in 1919 he spearheaded the formation of Der Wassermann (Aquarius), an artists' association challenging the Austrian art establishment. He served as president until 1921, when he passed the role to Faistauer. That year, he converted to Catholicism and, in 1922, received the Great Silver State Medal of Austria. Returning to Vienna in 1924, he exhibited with the progressive Hagenbund and earned further accolades, including the Austrian State Prize (1929) and the honorary City of Vienna Prize (1934). In 1938, a fire at the Neue Galerie in Salzburg destroyed most of his paintings.
Following the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria) in 1938, Harta fled to England with his wife, settling in Cambridge. In 1939, he participated in the First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors at the Wertheim Gallery in London, organised by the Free German League of Culture, a left-leaning group supporting German-speaking refugees in Britain. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Harta was interned in June 1940 as an ‘enemy alien’ at Huyton Camp near Liverpool, where he spent three and a half months working to convert a former factory settlement into a camp. Following his release, he supported himself as a portrait painter, creating works for prominent figures in Cambridge, including the Dean of St. John’s College, University of Cambridge (1944, location unknown). He also painted still lifes and landscapes in Sussex and Essex. During the autumn of 1940, his Cambridge flat and a significant number of his paintings were destroyed in the Blitz.
In 1942, he had two solo exhibitions at the Heffer Gallery in Cambridge. The first, comprising watercolours and drawings, was organised by architect, Professor Albert Richardson. A review in the Cambridge Daily News praised it as a ‘bright and versatile display’, highlighting his pencil and crayon works, as well as a ‘faithful and sincere’ pencil portrait of the conductor, Sir Adrian Boult. The second exhibition included oils, with a reviewer noting that Harta, ‘unlike many painters’, found English landscapes more inspiring than those of Italy or Austria. He was particularly praised for his painting Flowers in Vase, which was described as possessing ‘a precision and a luminosity that make it a spontaneous expression of the artist’s own feeling’. A third exhibition followed later that year, featuring still lifes, landscapes, and portraits. In addition to his artistic activities, Harta was involved in the Children’s Evacuation during the war. A drawing of the evacuated children evidences his engagement in this humanitarian effort.
In 1950, Harta returned to Salzburg, Austria with the support of the Salzburger Kunstverein, which hosted a solo exhibition of his work at the Salzburg Künstlerhaus. He organised the International Portrait Exhibition in 1956 and became Salzburg’s leading portrait artist throughout the decade. A major solo exhibition marking his 75th birthday was held at Galerie Künstlerbund, Mirabell Casino, in 1959. Felix Harta died in Salzburg, Austria in 1967. His work was posthumously included in an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Der Wassermann at the Salzburg Art Association in 1969. In 2019, his paintings featured in Brave New Visions: The Émigrés Who Transformed the British Art World at Sotheby’s, London, part of the Insiders/Outsiders festival honouring artists who fled Nazism. His work is held in UK public collections, including the British Museum; St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Related books
- Eva Jandi-Jorg ed., Faistauer, Schiele, Harta & Co Malerei Verbindet das Belvedere zu Gast im Salzburg-Museum (Salzburg: Salzburg Museum, 2019)
- Agnes Husslein-Arco, Wien-Paris: Van Gogh, Cezanne und Österreichs Moderne 1880–1960 (Vienna: Brandstätter, 2007)
- 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. 37, 57, 139, 257, 271, 285, 296
- Tobias Günter Natter and Thomas Trummer eds., Die Tafelrunde. Egon Schiele und sein Kreis. Meisterwerke des Österreichischen Frühexpressionismus [Round Table. Egon Schiele and His Circle. Masterpieces of Early Austrian Expressionism] (Cologne: DuMont, 2006)
- Tobias G Natter ed., Die Verlorene Moderne: der Künstlehrbund Hagen 1900–1938 (Vienna: Österreichische Galerie, 1993)
- Edith Karolina Baumgartner, Felix Albrecht Harta (1884–1967) (PhD Thesis, University of Salzburg, 1991)
- Hartmut Krug and Michael Nungesser eds., Kunst im Exil in Grossbritannien: 1933–1945 (Berlin: Frölich & Kaufmann, 1986), p. 131
- 'Some portraits by Kokoschka now at the Tate Gallery, Illustrated London News, 22 September 1962, p. 28.
- Franz Fuhrmann, 'Anton Faistauer: Briefe an Felix Albrecht Harta', Jahresschrift / Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Vol. 7, 1 January 1961, pp. 37-118
- W. Schaup, 'Zwischen Salzburg und Cambridge' [Between Salzburg and Cambridge], Salzburger Volkszeitung, 17 June 1950
- 'Art Show by Austrian at Cambridge', Cambridge Daily News (1940s)
- 'Artist's Life History', Cambridge Daily News (1942)
Public collections
Related organisations
- Académie Vitti, Paris (student)
- Dachau Artist Colony (resident/student)
- Der Wassermann (co-founder, president)
- Ehrenpreis der Stadt Wien [Prize of the City of Vienna] (honorary recipient, 1934)
- Große Silberne Staatsmedaille [Great Silver State Medal] (recipient, 1921)
- Hagenbund (member)
- Künstlervereinigungen Salzburg (co-founder)
- Münchner Kunstakademie (student)
- Neukunstgruppe (member)
- Österreichische Staatspreis [Austrian State Prize] (recipient, 1929)
- Technischen Hochschule, Vienna (student)
Related web links
- Artworks by Felix Harta in the collection of Belvedere Museum, Vienna
- Harta website by artist's grandson Larry Heller
- Exhibition poster by Felix Harta, 1919
- Faistauer, Schiele and Harta, Salzburg Museum, 2019
- Felix Harta's biography, Belvedere Museum website
- Felix Harta at his studio, 1925
- Portrait of Felix Harta by Oskar Kokoshka, 1909
Selected exhibitions
- Brave New Visions: The Émigrés Who Transformed the British Art World, Sotheby's, London (2019)
- Anton Faistauer, Egon Schiele and Felix Albrecht Harta, Salzburg Museum, Salzburg, Austria (2019)
- Ausstellung F. A. Harta, Galerie Künstlerbund, Mirabell Casino, Salzburg, Austria (1959)
- Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings & Sculptures, organised by the AC, Foyle’s Gallery, London (1945)
- Exhibition of Paintings by Professor Felix A. Harta, Heffer Gallery, Cambridge (12-24 March, presumably between 1943 and 1945)
- Exhibition of Oil Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings of Children by Felix A. Harta, Heffer Gallery, Cambridge (12-31 October 1942)
- Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings by Professor Felix A. Harta, Heffer Gallery, Cambridge (2-14 February 1942)
- Exhibition of Paintings by Professor Felix A. Harta, Heffer Gallery, Cambridge (1940)
- First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors, organised by the FGLC, Wertheim Gallery, London (1939)
