Obituary from AJR Information Feb. 1987 by Alice Schwab

AJR INFORMATION FEBRUARY 1987 (Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain)

 

HERMANN FECHENBACH by Alice Schwab

 

The death in December last of my former teacher (in Stuttgart) breaks another link in the chain of German-Jewish artists who found refuge from Nazi tyranny in this country. Hermann Fechenbach was born in 1897 in Bad Mergentheim, Wiirttemberg, where his father ran a family Gasthof und Metzgerei which was also the social centre of a venerable but now defunct Jewish community. Fechenbach described and beautifully illustrated the history of his family and of the Mergentheim community in Die Letzten Mergentheimer Juden (Stuttgart, 1972).

 

From an early age Fechenbach showed promise as an artist, but his family did not consider this to be a suitable career for a good Jewish boy. So he went into commerce and quickly attained recognition as a window-dresser. Then came the War and he was badly wounded with the loss of his left leg. His father now relented and allowed him to adopt an artistic career. After studying in Stuttgart and Munich, he eventually established himself in Stuttgart where he painted in the Neue Sachlichkeit style.

 

In 1933 his name was removed from the official register of artists and he was forbidden to exhibit publicly. Eventually he and his wife Grete Batze, a professional photographer, settled in Palestine. But the new environment did not agree with them. Grete came to England on a domestic permit in 1939 and he followed a few months later. He resumed his painting and engraving and managed to arrange for his parents to emigrate to South America, though his twin sister died in a concentration camp.

 

On release from internment in 1941 Fechenbach, sponsored by Dr. Bela Horowitz, had his first English exhibition in Oxford in 1942. This was followed by numerous exhibitions at the Anglo-Palestine Club, the Ben Uri Art Society and on the Embankment. Although these exhibitions were well received, his style was not to the popular taste. He was a cripple, shy, retiring and had great difficulty with English. Nevertheless, in 1969 he published Genesis, the First Book of Moses with 137 of his own wood engravings. Copies of this most interesting work are still available for sale at the Ben Uri Art Society. His wife who had been ill for many years died in 1983; he remarried in 1984.

 

After years of silence, his work once again received public acclaim at the end of his life. A major exhibition was held at Blond Fine Art in 1985, of which the Times wrote 'his powerful graphic style comes from the same roots as those of Käthe Kollwitz and is often fired by the same anger ... He is clearly an artist to be reckoned with'.