Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1912 Leipzig, Germany

Died: 2001 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1937

Other name/s: Walter Horst Nessler, Walter H Nessler, Horst Nessler

Biography

Painter, graphic artist and sculptor, Walter Nessler was born in Leipzig, Germany on 19 January 1912. He moved with his mother and aunt to Dresden at the age of six. After studying at the Technical Art College, he worked as a commercial artist and window dresser, studying painting at the Castelli Italian Art School from 1933–35 and for a short period in Paris. Although he was not Jewish, he greatly opposed the Nazi regime.

After his work was denounced as 'degenerate', Nessler immigrated to London in the summer of 1937 with his English wife, Prudence Ashbee. Before leaving Germany, he had produced Das Hitler ABC (The Hitler ABC), in which each letter ridiculed a different character trait of the Führer, and which Prudence smuggled out in her luggage. As Horst Nessler, he exhibited a work in the First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors, held at the Wertheim Gallery, London, in summer 1939 and sponsored by the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), a politically-orientated organisation offering cultural support to German speaking refugees. Following mass internment in spring 1940, like many other exiled artists, Nessler was interned at Huyton Camp outside Liverpool, where he sketched daily scenes, and drew notable fellow internees, such as the dancer Kurt Jooss and the art dealer Erich Cassirer. The same year, he enlisted in the Pioneer Corps of the British army, serving in France after the 1944 D-Day invasion, while continuing to sketch places and people. His fellow exile and lifelong friend, the designer Harry Rossney, later recalled how Nessler encouraged him, other comrades and the local French, through his painting classes. After the war, Nessler divorced his first wife, marrying Erica Ulman in 1953, with whom he moved into a studio home in West Hampstead. In the 1950s he gave painting lessons at London's Woodcraft Institute and studied sculpture with Elizabeth Frink at St Martin’s School of Art in 1959. His later career focused particularly on new materials, such as polyester resin. Nessler was also a friend of Fred and Diana Uhlman, who hosted him in their Hampstead home, which acted as the headquarters of the FGLC, founded in 1939.

Nessler exhibited regularly in exile. His varied artistic practice ranged from prescient, bombed wartime cityscapes to exuberant postwar paintings inspired by his passion for jazz. He was greatly influenced by Matisse, and by his acquaintance with artists such as Picasso, Giacometti and Cocteau, whom he met in Paris during the late 1940s and 1950s. Latterly, his work featured in the London Artists from Germany show (German Embassy, 1978) and he held several solo shows at John Denham Gallery (1984–97). A retrospective organised by John Denham in 1990 coincided with renewed interest in his work in Germany. Nessler was made an honorary fellow of the Dresden Academy and held solo shows in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Dresden. A catalogue of his major works was published by Ralf Hartweg. The life and work of Nessler was captured in the film documentary ‘Places and Dreams’ (1991) by Juergen Ast and Thomas Grimm. Walter Nessler died in London on 18 December 2001. His work was included in the important survey exhibition Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–1945 (Art in Exile in Great Britain), held in West Berlin in 1986, which then toured to the Camden Art Centre, London, in reduced form. In 2004 his sketches of Huyton Camp were displayed, alongside those of fellow internee artist, Hugo Dachinger, in the exhibition Art Behind Barbed Wire at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Most recently, a retrospective exhibition was held at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in 2019. His works are held in the collections of Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, and the Usher Gallery, Lincoln.

Related books

Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933–45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
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
Jennifer Powell and Jutta Vinzent, Art and Migration: Art Works by Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (Birmingham: Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 2005), pp. 85-86
London Artists From Germany (London: Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1978)

Public collections

Related organisations

St Martin School of Art, London (student)
Technical Art College, Dresden (student)
Castelli Italian Art School, Dresden (student)
London's Woodcraft Institute (teacher)

Selected exhibitions

Celebrating Emigre Artists in Britain, Pallant House Gallery, (2019)
Walter Nessler: Postwar Optimist, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (2019)
Art Behind Barbed Wire, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2004)
Walter Nessler: an Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings, 1936–1985, John Denham Gallery (1997)
Walter Nessler: Paintings from Late 50's to the 70's, Sweet Waters Gallery (1991)
Walter Nessler – Through the Years: Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures 1940s–1990, John Denham Gallery (1990)
London, a Personal View: Paintings, Collages, Watercolours, Drawings 1940s–1980s, John Denham Gallery (1988)
Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–1945 [Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933–1945], Schloss Charlottenburg, West Berlin (1986)
Walter Nessler: an Exhibition of Collages and Drawings, John Denham Gallery (1986)
Walter Nessler: Dresden 1930s – London 1980s: an Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Collages, Reliefs, John Denham Gallery (1984)
Walter Nessler: Man's Favourite Pastime, Pentonville Gallery (1982)
Dresden Artists of the Thirties, Margaret Fisher Gallery (1979)
The Colourful World of Walter Nessler: Polyester Paintings, Alwin Gallery (1965)
Nessler: Polyester Paintings, New End Gallery (1963)
Group exhibition, Madden Galleries (1963)
Walter Nessler: Metal Reliefs, Molton Gallery (1961)
Paintings by Nessler, John Whibley Gallery (1960)
Gallery One, London (1954)
Oil Paintings by H. H. Newton and Recent Paintings by Walter H. Nessler, Brook Street Gallery (1949)
Recent Paintings by Prunella Clough and Walter Nessler, Leger Galleries (1947)
Redfern Gallery (1945)
Leger Galleries (1943)
Exhibition of War Pictures, Artists' International Association (1941)
First Group Exhibition of German, Austrian and Czechoslovakian Painters and Sculptors, Wertheim Gallery, London (1939, sponsored by the Free German League of Culture)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Walter Nessler]