Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack

The artist and teacher Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack fled to England to escape the Nazis. In 1940 the British Government transported him and 2000 other German-speaking civilians on the ship Dunera to internment camps in Australia. In the internment camp at Tatura he produced the two woodcuts you see below.

Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, 1893-1965,
German/Australian,
Internment Camp, Tatura 1941,
woodcut, 15.0/24.1cm,
gift of Mrs Franz Philipp 1971,
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, 1893-1965,
German/Australian,
Tatura 1941,
woodcut, 14.8/19.5cm,
gift of Mrs Franz Philipp 1971,
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

In Germany he had been an artist of the Weimar Bauhaus (legendary school of art and design) and had studied under Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Lyonel Feininger among others. His main interest was the practical uses of colour-light theories. He had to leave Germany for Britain in 1936 because of his part-Jewish background (despite having won an Iron Cross in the German Army in World War One). In 1942 he began a successful and respected career as art teacher at Geelong Grammar School, where he introduced students to a wide variety of art techniques, and emphasised Bauhaus principles of art.

Exhibitions of his work were held in the European cities of Bolzano (Italy), Vienna and Frankfurt am Main in the year 2000.

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