Klaus Friedeberger was born in 1922 in Berlin in Germany to middle-class Jewish secular parents, and to escape Nazi persecution, he was sent to England in 1939 via the Netherlands. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, he was deported on the notorious ship 'Dunera' and interned as a so-called 'enemy alien' in Australia, where he learnt from and befriended fellow émigré artists and where he eventually settled after release. After returning to London in 1950, he renounced colour and figuration, producing heavily impastoed paintings and monochrome etchings, which he exhibited widely in both London and Australia, as well as taking up teaching positions at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the London College of Printing.
Painter Klaus Friedeberger was born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany to middle-class Jewish secular parents, who divorced in 1930. In 1938, to escape Nazi persecution, Friedeberger was sent to the Quaker School Eerde in the Netherlands, where he began to draw from nature, encouraged by his art teacher Max Warburg (son of Aby Warburg, founder of the eponymous research library and Institute).
In April 1939 he arrived as a refugee in England, finding work at an electrical sign company. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Friedeberger was interned as a so-called 'enemy alien' and detained in transit camps at Kempton Park Racecourse and Huyton, before being transported to Australia on the infamous prison ship, Dunera, along with nearly 3,000 German and Austrian Jewish refugees, Italians, and German prisoners of war. The internees aboard included artists, musicians and intellectuals, and eighteen-year-old Friedeberger received artistic education both during the voyage and in his subsequent internment (1940–42) at camps in Hay, New South Wales and Tatura, Victoria. Among the internees who gave lectures and organised classes were the sculptor Heinz Henghes, surrealist painter and film and stage designer, Hein Heckroth (1901–1970) and the photographer, Helmut Gernsheim (1913–1995). Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack (1893–1965) who had taught at the Bauhaus, gave classes in colour theory, and art history classes were held by Ernst Kitzinger (1912–2003) and Franz Philipp (1914–1970). In camp, Friedeberger also befriended the young sculptor Erwin Fabian (1915–2020) and produced over 200 watercolours and drawings of his surroundings, together with portraits and some Surrealist-inspired compositions, posters and set designs for the internees' stage productions. His works were included in a group exhibition held at Hay Camp in May 1941. On release from Tatura in 1942 Friedeberger joined the 8th Australian Employment Company, a non-combatant labour corps consisting of former internees. During his free time in Melbourne, he met local artists, including Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, exhibiting with them at the Contemporary Art Society in both Melbourne and Sydney (1944–49). His paintings, drawings and monotypes reflected his wartime experiences, although some works made in Melbourne were more allegorical in subject. He became increasingly concerned with using colour, and in 1946 began a series of paintings of children at play, a subject that was to occupy him over the next 20 years. After his release, Friedeberger enrolled at East Sydney Technical College (1947–50) under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. During his studies, he spent time with painters Guy Warren and Tony Tuckson, sculptors Alan Ingham and Oliffe Richmond, and a younger printmaker, Elizabeth Rooney. With Warren he hitchhiked around Australia during the summer of 1947–48, winning the Mosman Art Prize in 1949 for a painting Mt Gillen, Alice Springs inspired by the trip (collection of Mosman Art Gallery, Australia).
In 1950 Friedeberger returned to Europe, settling in London. His first solo show was held at Annely Juda's Hamilton Galleries in 1963 (Juda was herself an émigré) and in 1966 his work was featured in Ben Uri 50: Fiftieth Anniversary Special Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Society, London. Around 1966 Friedeberger renounced colour and figuration, with his paintings increasingly constituting heavily impastoed abstract compositions in a muted palette of whites, greys and blacks, with occasional additions of metallic paint. Friedeberger also worked as a graphic designer (some examples are in the British Museum) and taught part-time from 1961 to 1980 at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and at the London College of Printing. In 1979 his works were included in Ben Uri’s The Other Hand, an exhibition curated by graphic designer Abram Games. Exhibitions of his work were held at the Warwick Arts Trust, Coventry in 1986 and at Woodlands Art Gallery, London in 1992. Works from Friedeberger’s Australian period were included in the National Gallery of Australia's exhibitions Surrealism: Revolution by Night in 1993 and The Europeans: Emigré Artists in Australia, 1930–1960 in 1997. An exhibition of Friedeberger's early work (1940–70) was held at England & Co, London in 2007 (the gallery continues to hold and show his work), accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by Stephen Coppel from the British Museum; more recent work was shown in Aberystwyth, Wales in 2009. In 2015, his latest works were exhibited at Delahunty Fine Art, London. Although Friedeberger never returned to Australia, he regularly exhibited with Australian artists working in London, including at the Imperial Institute in 1955–57, and designed the poster for the first exhibition of the Australian Artists' Association at RWS Galleries, London (1953). Friedeberger died in London in 2019, working until the end of his life.
Frideberger's works are in the collections of the British Museum; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; University of Wollongong; National Art School, Darlinghurst and Mosman Art Gallery, Australia, among others.