Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Frederick Feigl artist

Frederick Feigl was born into a Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic) in 1884; he studied briefly at the Academy of Arts Prague, the Antwerp Academy, and in Paris, establishing a significant reputation as a modernist artist in Germany. He fled to England following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia March 1939. He exhibited frequently within émigré circles in London, including at the Wertheim Gallery (1940), Czechoslovak Institute (1944) and with Ben Uri on many occasions, where he was also a member of the Art Committee during the 1950s.

Born: 1884 Prague, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)

Died: 1965 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Friedrich Feigl, Bedřich Feigl, Fritz Feigl, Fred Feigl


Biography

Painter Frederick Feigl was born on 6 March 1884 in Prague, then a provincial capital within the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Czech Republic). Having studied briefly at the Academy of Arts in Prague, from which he was expelled for his over-zealous enthusiasm for avant-garde artists such as Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, Feigl co-founded the modernist group Osma with Emila Filla, Antonín Procházka, Bohuslav Kubiŝta, Otakár Kubin, Emil Longhen, Willi Nowak and Max Horb. Emigré art historian, J. P. Hodin, who later supported Feigl in England, observed that Osma 'strove […] to break with the dogma of the imitation of nature which reactionary Prague then demanded and to wrestle with the new problems of colour and form' (Hodin, 1964). With a bursary from the German Academy of Arts and Sciences in Prague, Feigl studied at the Antwerp Academy of Art and the Académie Julian in Paris. He lived in Hamburg from 1910, establishing a significant reputation in Germany, prior to a year in Palestine in 1932. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1933 but fled Prague in April 1939 following the Nazi occupation. Although Feigl's work was not featured in the 1937 Entartete Kunst exhibition, the Nazis considered his work 'degenerate' and between 1937–38, confiscated it from public collections across Germany. Oskar Kokoschka, who had known Feigl's gallerist brother, Hugo, in Prague, advised Feigl and his wife, Margarethe, to request help from the British Consulate in Cologne, to travel to London. They settled first in Battersea, then Highgate and, finally, Hampstead, making contact with local resident, émigré artist, Fred Uhlman, co-founder of the Artists' Refugee Committee.

Feigl's earliest London showing, in late June 1939, was in the First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors at the Wertheim Gallery, under the auspices of the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), a politically-inclined refugee organisation, which supported German-speakers during the war. Feigl continued to exhibit within wider émigré circles and in 1941 helped to organise (and exhibited in) Leicester Museum and Art Gallery’s first exhibition by Czechoslovak émigrés. In 1942 he participated in the British Council and CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts) exhibition, Works by Allied Artists. In 1943, he showed both with established London dealer, Lefevre Galleries, and in the more politicised Artists Aid Jewry Exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery. In 1944 a 60th birthday exhibition was held in his honour at the Czechoslovak Institute, comprised of works painted in exile. The catalogue foreword by Czechoslovak poet, translator and diplomat, Victor Kripner, acknowledged Feigl as: 'one of the most outstanding personalities among the Czechoslovak artists living abroad […], carrying on his artistic efforts in circumstances which might easily discourage many of his younger colleagues'. From 1945, Feigl showed with Ben Uri Gallery including in its annual open exhibitions of work by Jewish artists; Festival of Britain Anglo-Jewish Exhibition 1851-1951 Art Section; Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artist (1956), and Twelve Contemporary Artists: Archibald Ziegler, Alfred Harris, Claude Rogers, Jacob Bornfriend, Morris Kestelman, Frank Auerbach, John Coplans, Kalman Kemeny, Josef Herman, Alfred Daniels, Henry Inlander, Fred Feigl (1958). Feigl also held a solo exhibition in 1964 celebrating his 80th birthday and was a member of Ben Uri's Art Committee during the 1950s.

Feigl regularly found artistic inspiration and conviviality in London's cafes and restaurants, which he referred to as 'the market places of life'. Attempting to recreate continental 'kaffe haus' culture in exile, refugees gathered at venues such as the Cosmo, on Finchley Road, West Hampstead, close to Feigl's home, and that of his close neighbour, Hodin. Feigl also depicted motifs from Jewish life, biblical lore, Greek myth, and the landscape, developing an affinity with the quintessentially English medium of watercolour. He often painted en plein air, sometimes accompanied on art trips by a young Indian painter, Usha Shah (who also exhibited with Ben Uri). Despite his prewar success and support from Hodin, Feigl's reputation in England remained largely unfulfilled.

Fred Feigl died in London, England on 19 December 1965. His work is represented in both international and UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection and Leicester Museum & Art Gallery. A retrospective Friedrich Feigl The Eye Sees the World was held in the Czech Republic in 2016 (Cheb Gallery of Fine Arts, followed by a showing in České Budějovice), accompanied by a monograph in Czech and German, edited by the exhibition's curator, Professor Nicholas Sawicki, including an essay on Feigl's years in Britain, co-authored by Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall.

Related books

  • Nicola Baird ed., Czech Routes: Selected Czechoslovak Artists in Britain from the Ben Uri and Private Collections (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2019)
  • Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, 'Fred Feigl in England: 'Modern Art is a Sputnik'', in Nicholas Sawicki ed., Friedrich Feigl (1884–1965) (Prague: Arbor, Vitae, 2016)
  • William D. Rubinstein, Michael A. Jolles and Hilary L. Rubinstein eds., The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, introduction, and eds., Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c.1933-45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
  • Arno Pařík, Friedrich Feigl (1884–1965): Paintings, Drawings and Graphic Art (Prague: Jewish Museum, 2008)
  • 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
  • Josef Paul Hodin, Feigl 80th Birthday Exhibition (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 1964)
  • Georg Marzynski, Friedrich Feigl (Berlin: Fritz Gurlitt, 1921)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Antwerp Academy of Art (student)
  • Académie Julian (student)
  • Austrian Centre (member)
  • Ben Uri Art Society (Art Committee member)
  • Free German League of Culture (member)
  • Osma group (co-founder)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Czech Routes: Selected Czech Artists in Britain from the Ben Uri and Private Collections, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2019)
  • The Prague Ghetto and other Works by Friedrich Feigl, Centro Sefarad-Israel, Madrid (2019)
  • Exodus: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Bushey Museum (2018)
  • Friedrich Feigl The Eye See the World, Cheb Gallery of Fine Arts and České Budějovice, Czech Republic (2016)
  • Feigl Retrospective, Jewish Museum, Prague (2007)
  • Selections from the Permanent Collection: Watercolours, Drawings, Graphics, Ben Uri Gallery (1977)
  • Frederick Feigl 80th Birthday Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1964)
  • Brodzky, Harris, Kahn, Clare, Feigl, Sanders, Josephs, Pereira and Borchard, Queenswood Gallery, London (1960)
  • Exhibition of Recent Paintings and Drawings by Frederick Feigl, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1959)
  • Ben Uri Art Gallery (1945)
  • Free German League of Culture (1939–1945)
  • Feigl, 60th Birthday Celebration Exhibition, Czechoslovak Institute (1944)
  • Artists Aid Jewry Exhibition, Whitechapel Art Gallery (1943)
  • Wertheim Gallery, London (1940)
  Frederick Feigl
   
Ben Uri collection

Frederick Feigl in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Frederick Feigl]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Frederick Feigl] in the Ben Uri Library