Drawing
Date made: 1940
Artist: Bischof, Erich A.
Description: Blank ink monochrome painting of six workmen on the beach with a truck digging channel to lay drainage pipes. Small fishing boat in background at sea. Signed and dated and inscription written on reverse.
Erich Bischof (1899-1990) was born in Berlin, Germany in 1899; after studies in his home city and briefly in the UK, he fled the Nazi regime due to his communist beliefs, arriving in England in 1939 (by way of Poland), where he was imprisoned in 1940 as an 'enemy alien' on the Isle of Man. In exile he joined the refugee organisation, the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), participating in its exhibition 'Artists Aid Jewry' in 1943, and contributing illustrations to the German émigré journal 'Die Zeitung'. Bischof eventually returned to East Germany in the late 1940s, where he found great difficulty in being recognised as an artist by the new German Democratic Republic.
Background:
There were many celebrated modern artists interned on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, they were forced to flee Nazi Germany as the regime suppressed so called ‘degenerate’ art. Jewish artists were doubly vulnerable. We have an internationally significant collection of works created in the internment camps, with many of those artists going on to have high profile careers after the war.
Measurements: overall: 22.5 x 29 cm
Materials: Ink & Paper
Object name: drawing
Collection: Art Collection
ID number: 1996-0093/3
Subject tags : #WW2INTERNMENTMUSEUMCOLLECTIONS