Paul Humpoletz was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1889, contributing as a cartoonist and illustrator to several key Austrian satirical periodicals between 1904–38. Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, he immigrated to England in 1939. After a period of internment on the Isle of Man in 1940–41, he worked as an illustrator and cartoonist in London, eventually returning to Austria in 1968.
Illustrator and caricaturist Paul Humpoletz was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1889. Working as a cartoonist and illustrator in 1904–38 he regularly contributed to several key Austrian satirical periodicals, including Das Kleine Blatt, Die Muskete and Der Götz von Berlichingen. Following the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany) in 1938 Humpoletz fled to Czechoslovakia, arriving in England and eventually settling in London a year later.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Humpoletz was classified as a so-called 'enemy alien' and was detained from February 1940 (before the government's official policy of mass internment was implemented) until February 1941. He spent most of his internment on the Isle of Man at Hutchinson (the so-called artist's camp, given the significant number of artist detainees with international reputations), where he produced drawings and caricatures, as well as the stage designs for a revue, entitled What A Life!, produced entirely by internees and for which fellow internee, the eminent composer Hans Gál, wrote the music. Humpoletz designed the programme cover and a poster advertising the revue, depicting a caricatured singer, seated on a chest marked 'porridge' (a camp staple), playing a harp with strings of barbed wire (Richard Dove 2005, p. 132). He also made a woodcut celebrating a (Jewish) New Year service held in the Palace Theatre, Central Promenade Camp, on 3 October 1940 (Private Collection). Humpoletz's son described creativity as vital to his father's survival in internment: '[...] theatrical stage designs and posters made camp life 'bearable' through the focus and purpose the artistic activity provided' (dw.com, 2017).
Following his release in 1941, Humpoletz returned to London, contributing regularly as an illustrator for a popular family magazine The Leader and working as a freelance illustrator on various other publications and children's books. He became a British subject in 1947 and changed his name to Hubert Paul. With his wife, Humpoletz relocated to Switzerland and then to Vienna in 1968, where he died in 1972. Humpoletz's original drawings from the stage sets for What a Life! are held in the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. With a resurgence in research into forgotten music of exile, Humpoletz's design for What a Life! has received renewed interest and was featured on the cover of the AJR Journal in December 2017.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Paul Humpoletz]
Publications related to [Paul Humpoletz] in the Ben Uri Library