Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Hans Feibusch artist

Hans Feibusch was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany in 1898 and studied fine art in Berlin, winning the Prix de Rome. After further winning the Prussian State Prize for painting in Frankfurt in 1930, he aroused Nazi antagonism, leading to his departure in 1933 for England, where he joined his fiancée Sidonie Gestetner. In London, he launched a sucessful career as a painter and, championed by Bishop of Chichester George Bell, undertook many Church of England commissions, including for Chichester Cathedral, going on to become known as Britain’s most prolific muralist.

Born: 1898 Frankfurt, Germany

Died: 1998 Camden, London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1933


Biography

Painter, illustrator, lithographer, author, muralist and sculptor, Hans Feibusch was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany on 15 August 1898; his mother, Marianne (née Ickelheimer), was an amateur painter. During the First World War Feibusch served in the German army (1916–18), then briefly studied medicine before settling in Berlin in 1920 and studying painting under Karl Hofer, winning the Prix de Rome. Following a period in Italy, he spent a year in Paris, studying under Otto Freisz and André Lhote and exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and at the Paris Indépendants. After returning to Germany, he was awarded the Prussian State Prize for Painting in Frankfurt in 1930 for his painting The Fishmonger, which aroused Nazi antagonism. He was also a member of the Frankfurter Künstlerbund and gained important commissions from the city’s mayor, until following the introduction of anti-Semitic legislation after Hitler's accession to the Chancellorship, he was dismissed from the group, forbidden to paint, and his pictures were publicly burned. In 1933 he found refuge in London, joining his British fiancée Sidonie Gestetner.


In early summer 1934, Feibusch exhibited alongside other Jewish artists at Ben Uri Gallery, London, and concurrently, in the Exhibition of German-Jewish Artists at the Parsons Gallery, London, organised by German-Jewish émigré dealer, Carl Braunschweig (later Charles Brunswick) to highlight artists suffering persecution under the Nazi regime. He also undertook work including poster designs and book illustrations to partially fund his first solo show at the prestigious Lefevre Galleries in Mayfair, which included works on biblical subjects, genre scenes and landscapes, prompting art critic Jan Gordon to observe: ‘Nobody could accuse Hans Feibusch […] of being divorced from life. Life almost overwhelms one from his exuberant canvases, and his figures are infused with a titanic energy’ (The Observer 1934, p. 16). In November the same year, he was invited to join the progressive London Group, where he exhibited annually (twice in 1937) until 1939, also exhibiting with the left-wing Artists’ International Association (AIA) in Artists against Fascism and War in 1935; in the same year, he settled in Landseer Studios, Cunningham Place, St John's Wood (where he remained until 1998) and was commissioned to decorate Edwin Maxwell’s modernist Sun House in Hampstead. In 1937, in his absence, Feibusch’s work was included in the infamous Nazi Entartete Kunst (‘degenerate art’) exhibition mounted in Munich, and then, in 1938, in the Burlington Galleries’ London Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art, a riposte to the Nazi show; he was granted British citizenship the same year. During the war, he worked as a firewatcher and first-aider, also exhibiting in the AIA For Liberty exhibition (1943), at Victor Waddington Galleries at 8 South Anne Street, Dublin (1944), and at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (1944 onwards).


Following a commission from Edward D. Mills in 1937 to create his first public mural, The Footwashing, at the Methodist Chapel, Colliers Wood, London, Feibusch was championed by Dr. George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, undertaking work for some 35 Anglican churches and cathedrals in all, including a chapel in Brighton and Chichester Cathedral. His many London commissions include murals for St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate; Saint Vedast, Foster Lane; and the Church of St John the Evangelist, Waterloo. In 1946 he published a book on Mural Painting (A&C Black) and colour lithographs on The Revelation of St John the Divine (Collins), admired for their ‘pagan, folklore quality’ (The Irish Times 1946, p. 6). Following the death of his wife, Sidonie, in 1963, Feibusch converted to Christianity in 1965, worshipping at St Alban the Martyr in London, which houses his largest religious mural, Trinity in Glory (1966), and fourteen Stations of the Cross; he later produced a bronze figure of Christ for the exterior. He also produced a series of five Old Testament oil paintings, commissioned by Rabbi Hugo Gryn for the West London Synagogue (1973, acquired for Ben Uri Collection in 2012, now on loan to St. Bonifatius, London). Feibusch’s secular commissions included 12 large panels for Newport Civic Centre (almost certainly his larget mural) and a large painting for Dudley's municipal concert hall (1948). From 1950, he showed regularly at the Society of Mural Painters’ exhibitions and his ceiling panel cartoon for Hampstead Town Hall featured in the exhibition Six Places in Search of an Artist organised by the Hampstead Artists’ Council in the same year. In 1951 he participated in the Festival of Britain as both painter and muralist. Post-war he served on the arts committee at Ben Uri, where he also held solo shows in 1970 and 1977 - the latter included sculpture, which he took up after his eyesight began to fail in the early 1970s.


In 1967 he was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (advanced to Commander's Cross or Great Cross of Merit in 1989). Hans Feibusch died at the Royal Free Hospital, London, England on 19 December 1998, having reverted to Judaism in 1992, and was buried at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery. Following his death, the contents of his north London studio (artwork and ephemera) were bequeathed to Pallant House Gallery, which held a touring exhibition in 1995. Feibusch’s work is also held in many other UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Tate.

Related books

  • Deborah Dash Moore, Todd Endelman, and Zvi Gitelman, 'Crisis and Creativity Between World Wars, 1918-1939', The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Vol. 8 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), p. 678
  • Joanna Cheetham, Hans Feibusch Between Germany and Britain: Patronage and the Public Sphere (London: University of London, 2015)
  • James Beechey, 'On and off the Wall: British Murals in the Twentieth Century', The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 155, No. 1323, 2013, pp. 408–413
  • Joanna Cheetham, A Forgotten Legacy: Iconoclasm and the Church Murals of Hans Feibusch (London: University of London, 2010)
  • Andrew Chandler, 'The Church, the Writer and the Artist in the Face of Dictatorship: Bishop Bell and His Allies in Britain during the Middle Twentieth Century', Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2007, pp. 298-315
  • 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
  • Jean Macrae, The Post-War Revival of Religious Art in the Church of England: the Contribution of Three Jewish Artists, M Phil thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2006 (Vol. II with illustrations available at http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/1968/1/U232526.pdf)
  • Paul G. M. Foster, Feibusch Murals, Chichester and Beyond: an Exploration of Approach (Chichester: Chichester Institute of Higher Education, 1997)
  • Marcy Leavitt Bourne, 'Hans Feibusch. Chichester and Northampton', The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 138, No. 1114, 1996, pp. 46-47
  • David Coke, Hans Feibusch: The Heat of Vision (London: Lund Humphries, 1995)
  • Hans Feibusch, Mural Painting (London: A & C Black, 1946)
  • James C. Kennedy, Hans Feibusch: An Eightieth Birthday Exhibition of Recent Sculptures with a selection of earlier paintings and drawings (London: The Orangery, 1978)
  • John Wren, 'Municipal Murals', Tribune, Fasc. 587, 9 April 1948, p. 21
  • 'Bishop Gives Judgment on Mural Petition', The Observer, 16 May 1954, p. 9
  • 'Six Places in Search of an Artist', The Manchester Guardian, 6 June 1950, p. 5
  • 'A Fine Edition', The Irish Times, 9 November 1946, p. 6
  • Jan Gordon, 'Art and Artists: our Clannish Art. The National Society', The Observer, 13 February 1938, p. 14
  • 'The Ban on Jewish Artists', The Manchester Guardian, 17 June 1933, p. 11

Public collections

Related organisations

  • London Group (member)
  • Society of Mural Painters (member)
  • Hampstead Artists` Council (member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Painting with an Accent: German-jewish Emigre Stories, curated by Ben Uri at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London (2024)
  • Art-exit: 1939 - A Very Different Europe, 12 Star Gallery, London (2019)
  • Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933-45, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London (2018)
  • Exodus: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Bushey Museum, Bushey (2018)
  • Refugees: The Lives of Others - German Refugee Artists to the UK, Ben Uri Gallery (2017)
  • Uproar: The First 50 Years of The London Group 1913-1963, Ben Uri Gallery (2014)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933-45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
  • The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum, Phillip's Auctioneers, London and Edinburgh (2001)
  • Hans Feibusch: The Heat of Vision, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (1995)
  • Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1994)
  • Hans Feibusch: Sculptures and Gouaches, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1977)
  • Hans Feibusch: Paintings, gouaches, drawings, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1970)
  • Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1956)
  • Festival of Britain: Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, 1851-1951, Art Section, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1951)
  • The Artist: Self-Portrait and Environment, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1951)
  • Six Places in Search of an Artist, organised by the Hampstead Artists' Council, Hampstead (1950)
  • First Exhibition of the Society of Mural Painters, New Burlington Galleries (1950)
  • Contemporary Jewish Artists: Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1949)
  • Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1945)
  • Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin (1944)
  • Royal Academy of Arts, London (1944)
  • London Group Exhibition, Cooling Galleries (1940)
  • Hans Feibusch, Lefevre Gallery (1938)
  • Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Gallery, Portman Street (1944)
  • Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery (1937)
  • Degenerate Art Exhibition, Munich (1937)
  • Paintings by Hans Feibusch, Lefevre Gallery (1934)
  • Exhibition of German-Jewish Artists, Parsons Gallery, London (1934)
  • Opening of the Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery and an Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery, London (1934)
  • Painting with an Accent: German-jewish Emigre Stories, German Embassy, London (2024)
  Hans Feibusch
   
Ben Uri collection

Hans Feibusch in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Hans Feibusch]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Hans Feibusch] in the Ben Uri Library