Gerhart Frankl was born into a Jewish family in 1901 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) and trained at the Technische Hochschule, becoming associated with the Nötscher Circle and the Kunstschau Group. Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Frankl fled the country and immigrated to England, where he became a lecturer in art at the University of Cambridge and London University, while working as a picture restorer for the National Gallery (1945–47); he also exhibited at several renowned London galleries, working predominantly in watercolour, gouache and pastels. Posthumously, his reputation has been consolidated in the UK and Europe.
Painter and printmaker Gerhart Frankl was born in 1901 to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria), son of lawyer Emil Frankl and Else Frankl (née Kohn). Frankl graduated from the Schottengymnasium and in 1919–20 took evening drawing classes at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna. In 1920–22 he spent his summers in Nötsch with the painter Anton Kolig, a family friend, meeting Wolfgang Schaukal, Bohdan Herzmansky, Sebastian Isepp and Franz Wiegele of the Nötscher Circle. In 1921, after only a brief attendance, Frankl was expelled from the Vienna School of Applied Arts (Kunstgewerbeschule). Around this time, he met Christine Büringer (1897–1985), Isepp's niece, whom he would marry in 1936. In 1923–24 he travelled to Germany, France, Belgium, and Tunisia (where he briefly joined the French Foreign Legion). While in France, Frankl was profoundly moved by Paul Cézanne’s works in Auguste Pellerin’s collection. Shortly after, Frankl joined the Kunstschau artistic group and explored etching as a medium. In 1928 the Österreichische Galerie acquired Frankl's painting Still Life with Clay Pipe and his first solo exhibition opened at Galerie Caspari in Munich; Frankl also toured the Alps on his BMW motorbike, and many of his prints depict views he sketched en route. In the early 1930s, Frankl also experimented with sculpture. In 1930 the first monograph on Frankl by Hans Tietze (1880–1954) was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Neue Galerie in Vienna. In late 1934 Frankl met one of his main supporters, Fritz Novotny (1903–1983), art historian and future director of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.
Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Frankl and his wife fled the country on 28 July 1938; Frankl's parents stayed and perished in the Holocaust. Immigrating to England, Frankl lectured at Morley College for Working Men and Women (1946-47), at Cambridge University, and was a Lecturer in Art at London University. From 1939 to 1943 he made numerous watercolour views in London, Bristol, and Berkshire, as well as studies of Old Master paintings from the British Museum collections, exhibiting his work at Walker's Galleries and the Calman Gallery, London (1938). During this time he also became friendly with influential figures such as Kenneth Clark (director of the National Gallery, 1934-1944) and fellow Austrian émigré, art historian, Ernst Gombrich. To gain extra income Frankl worked as a picture restorer in 1945–47, mainly assisting Dr Johannes Hell with the National Gallery collection. Frankl returned to Vienna in 1947, lecturing on art theory at the University of Vienna, while living in the Lower Belvedere, the accommodation arranged for the couple by Novotny, since their own apartment had been unlawfully occupied. Frankl also worked in the museum's conservation studios. The spectacular Baroque setting surrounding the palaces and the view over Vienna found expression in a series of works he created in 1947–49. Frankl applied for the post of professor at The Academy of Fine Arts and became a member of the exchange commission at the Österreichische Galerie.
Finding it difficult to resettle in Austria, Frankl and his wife returned to London in 1949. In 1950 Frankl gained British citizenship, and in 1954 he met the émigré architect Julian Sofaer (1924–2017), who would become a great supporter of his work, future trustee of his estate, facilitator of many posthumous exhibitions, and compiler of a catalogue raisonée. Now living in Dulwich, south London, Frankl and his wife spent summers travelling through the Alps (mainly in the Dolomites and Tyrol), the landscape continuing to provide inspiration. By 1959, Frankl was working predominantly in watercolour, gouache and pastels. The Belvedere curator Kerstin Jesse commented on his Mountain Fantasies series: 'The essentially unrepresentable nature of the Alps' monumentality, mass, sublimity, and vastness, as well as the light in the mountains, which tested the limits of painting, were resolved by Frankl through dispensing with the representational to create imagery that dissolved form and was non-figurative, almost transcendental' (Agnes Husslein-Arco and K. Jesse, eds., Gerhart Frankl: Rastlos, 2015). In 1960, the first post-war UK exhibition of Frankl's works was held at the Reid Gallery in London. In 1962, the first museum retrospective was held at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. Frankl was awarded the City of Vienna's prize for painting in 1963.
Frankl died unexpectedly of a heart attack on 25 July 1965 in Vienna. He had been elected professor at The Academy of Fine Arts in 1962, but bureaucracy had drawn out the process, and the position was now tragically unfilled. Frankl is buried at Vienna's Central Cemetery. Through Sofaer's efforts, in 1970 a Frankl retrospective was held at the Hayward Gallery, London, with Gombrich contributing to the catalogue, and an exhibition, Higher Ground: Prints by Gerhart Frankl (1901–65), was shown at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in 2013. In October 2015, the Gerhart Frankl Memorial Trust donated Frankl’s works on paper to the Albertina and paintings to the Belvedere; the latter presented Masterpieces in Focus: Gerhart Frankl – Restless, in 2015. Frankl's work is represented in UK public collections, including the British Museum, Courtauld Gallery, Imperial War Museum (which holds a published version of Frankl's sketchbook, In Memoriam 1947 -1951, donated by Sofaer), and Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; New Walk Museum and Gallery, Leicester; and York Art Gallery.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Gerhart Frankl]
Publications related to [Gerhart Frankl] in the Ben Uri Library