Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1895 Vienna, Austria-Hungary

Died: 1974 Los Angeles, California, USA

Year of Migration to the UK: 1924

Biography

Artists and adventurer Roland Strasser was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria) on 26 April 1892. His father, Arthur Strasser, was a successful German-born sculptor of Spanish-Basque heritage who held the position of Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, while his mother, Maria Dorothea Strasser (Maurer) was of French heritage. Strasser had two siblings, a sister (Hedwig-Maria, later Huldschinsky) and a brother, Benjamin, who became a painter. Arthur Strasser played a crucial role in nurturing his sons’ artistic skills and interests, as well as fostering their appreciation for travel and culture. Roland Strasser began his formal education at the Vienna Academy, studying under the tutelage of Alosi Jungwirth. At the age of 17, he embarked on a journey to Egypt with his father, a voyage that would ignite his enduring passion for travel and adventure. From 1911 to 1915, he continued his studies at the Munich Academy under the mentorship of Angelo Jank. During the First World War and following the example of his elder brother, Benjamin, Strasser succeeded in obtaining a role as an official war artist in Munich within the art division of the k.u.k. War Press Headquarters. Following the end of the war, he turned to illustrating children’s books and producing lithographs for the Society for Reproductive Art. Between 1919 and 1924, Strasser undertook a series of study expeditions to Holland, Siam, Java, New Guinea, China, Mongolia, and Tibet. An exhibition of paintings created in Holland financed Strasser’s inaugural trip to Indonesia in 1919.

In the spring of 1924, Strasser immigrated to London, England. His works from China, Japan, and Mongolia, exhibited to glowing reviews, earned him £4,000 (now nearly a quarter of a million dollars). In subsequent years, Strasser’s London agent, gallerist William P. Paterson, managed his business affairs. By winter of 1924, Strasser was traveling again, residing first in India, and by spring 1925, he crossed the 6,000 metre-high Kula Pass in the Himalayas, returning to Tibet. Later that year, he revisited Mongolia (Urga, now Ulaanbaatar) and explored Kobdo Province (Khovd Province) where he was arrested by Soviet soldiers on suspicion of espionage. Although his diary and maps were seized, he managed to keep his paintings and drawings. Upon his release, he journeyed through the Gobi Desert to China, where he was robbed by Chang Tso-lin’s rebel soldiers in Peking (now Beijing) losing many of his artworks. In this period, he also visited Bombay, Nagpur, Calcutta, Tientsin, Kobe and Kyoto. In 1927, he returned to Vienna via the Trans-Siberian railway to see his sick father who died later in the year. Strasser soon relocated back to London. With his wife Enrica Luise, he later lived in in Kintimani, Bali from 1934 until 1944. In 1946, they were living in Sydney, where Strasser became part of an artists’ collective known as the Merioola Group (which included Arthur Fleischmann and Donald Friend), exhibiting with them in 1947. The couple then returned to London where they remained until 1952 (his older brother had been in London since the late 1930s).

Strasser was a representative of late Orientalist Romanticism, aiming to portray what Europeans of the time deemed ‘exotic.’ However, his early oeuvre also includes dramatic depictions of the First World War, such as the painting titled Nach der Schlacht (After the Battle) from 1914–15, now housed in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna. His dynamic compositions are notable for capturing challenging subjects, Strasser often taking significant risks in his artistic practice. While traveling, he depicted a wide range of events and people, from geishas to Mongolian princesses and peasants, with remarkable psychological depth. Strasser exhibited his work regularly throughout his life. Patterson regularly presented his drawings and paintings in London with the sales financing Strasser’s subsequent journeys. Strasser held solo exhibitions at Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris in 1928 and at London's Zwemmer Gallery (established by émigré, Anton Zwemmer) in 1934.

In 1930, he published The Mongolian Horde, recounting his travels through China and Mongolia, accompanied by 21 sketches, although most of his work was done in Bali. However, by the late 1940s, the popularity of exotic travel paintings was waning, as easily reproducible colour magazine photographs began offering views of distant lands and cultures, once depicted by artists like Strasser. Consequently, he shifted his focus to portraiture, characterised by colourful, expressive and fluid brushwork in an impressionist manner.

In the early 1950s, the Strassers relocated to Santa Monica, California, where the warm climate benefited Roland’s declining health. During this period, he restored a local 1930s mural by the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Roland Strasser died in Santa Monica, California, USA on 27 July 1974. In the UK public domain his works are held in the collection of the British Museum.

Related books

Gianni Orsini, ‘Soul Brothers, Twin Artists: Strasser and Dooijewaard in Bali and beyond’, in Philippe Augier, ed., Transcultural Expressions Tahiti-Bali (Bali: Museum Pasifika, 2017), pp. 192-205.
D H Dhaimeler, Roland Strasser (1895-1974) (Jakarta: Duta Fine Arts Foundation, 1991)
Janis Lavoos, 'Roland Strasser, Painter of the Far East', American Artist, November 1960, pp. 30-35, 68-70
Catalogue for inaugural exhibition by the Merioola Group of Sydney - paintings, sculptures, photographs by Arthur Fleischmann, Justin O'Brien, Loudon Sainthill, Donald Friend, Edgar Ritchard, Roland Strasser, Peter Kaiser, Jocelyn Rickards, Alex Murray (Sydney: 1947)
Hans Vollmer, ed., 'Roland Strasser', Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1938), pp. 158-159
Roland Strasser, The Mongolian Horde (London/Toronto/New York: Jonathan Cape & Harrison Smith, 1930)
William P. Paterson, Exhibition of drawings and oil paintings by Roland Strasser, exh. cat. (London: Wm. B. Paterson, 1928)

Public collections

British Museum

Related organisations

Merioola Group (member)

Selected exhibitions

Three Day Auction, Lawrences, Surrey (1989)
Merioola Group of Sydney (group show), Myer Mural Hall, Melbourne, Australia (1947)
Exhibition of Paintings and Chalk-Drawings from Japan and the Island of Bali (solo exhibition), Zwemmer Gallery, London (1934)
Willem Dooijewaard and Roland Strasser, Bataviasche Kunstkring, Batavia (1932)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), W B Paterson’s Gallery, London (1931)
Persian Art Exhibition (group show), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1931)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), Burton Gallery, Burton (1928)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, Paris (1928)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), W. B. Paterson’s Gallery, London (1928)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), W. B. Paterson’s Gallery, London (1925)
Roland Strasser (solo exhibition), Austrian Legation, London (1924)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Roland Strasser]