Edmund Fürst

Edmund Fürst ( born January 6, 1874 in Berlin, † 1955 in Tel Aviv) in was a German painter, etcher, and illustrator.

Life

Prince was born in 1874 in Berlin. His father Gustav Gershon had studied painting in Paris and was then returned to Berlin, where he became known as an artist. His father ( grandfather Edmunds ) held by the art so little that he to Paris held the traditional Jewish mourning period after the departure of his son. Fürst's family was originally from Hungary, from where they had moved to Frankfurt / Oder. Later, Edmund attended the Real Gymnasium in Berlin, then for 4 years the Berlin Academy of Art.

Even as a student at the Academy he made in 1904 in the exhibition of the Berlin Secession with the oil painting " Dragon Slayer " attention. In 1906, he presented at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition of drawings fairy tales, including four illustrations to King Thrushbeard. In 1907 he participated in the exhibition at the Munich Glass Palace with two watercolors in part. As a member of the German Association of Artists, he participated in the Graphical exhibitions in Leipzig in 1907 and Hamburg in 1913.

In 1902 he married Catherine Johanna Lauda, ​​daughter of a grain merchant. The young family had a close relationship to the liberal Rabbi Dr. Lahmann, the prince had quickly become known as a painter. But above all, as an illustrator, Prince did show by graphical work - in addition to drawings, engravings, lithographs he created regular work for the supplement of the "Berlin magazine ", the famous Berlin Ullstein publishing. This occupied him on a permanent basis as a book illustrator. So he has a long series of books illustrated, some of which have been translated into Hebrew. He participated in exhibitions of the Berlin Artists' Association, as well as the Berlin Secession. In these exhibitions his portraits, landscapes covered in watercolor and oil and its numerous etchings the attention of art critics up. Of the latter, many subjects from the Old and New Testaments, which employed the artist in less religious, but rather in a spiritual way. He was a loner, his friends chose to care. In Berlin he had befriended while studying at the Academy with Lyonel Feininger, who was married to Fürst's sister Clara later a short time. He was also the painter Max Fabian on friendly terms.

With the proclamation of the Weimar Republic, he was sent by the publisher as a draftsman and reporter for the National Assembly in Weimar. In those years, he traveled to Europe from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, and recorded everywhere and he painted oil and watercolor paintings, which not only testify to his impressionistic affinities, but also from its high artistic level that was discussed positively in the Berlin press. In 1920 he illustrated Biirgel Ulebuhle stories - a bestseller of the time.

It seems that it have the horrors of war, the tragic events surrounding the subsequent riots and the questioning of the very foundations of life in Germany in the years after the first world war psychologically so upset that he decided to leave with his family in Berlin. For this purpose, he bought at Würzburg estate with vineyards and agriculture, and tried his hand as a farmer, including at harvest, taking his right hand so strongly moved by the work with the sickle affected that the doctor forbade him this from now on (1922 ). Since he had no experience in it and did not know how you have to run a farm, he could not maintain this longer. He had to sell and retire with his family to Berlin. There, the situation had now changed but thoroughly. The runaway inflation had let collapse the economy. In order to feed his family, he took a part-time job at Ullstein and accept it as the head of Retuschierwerkstatt. Thus, the livelihood was assured and he could devote his artistic work now for most of the day. He held this position until Hitler's seizure of power.

Soon after he was ruled out as a Jew from the obligatory " Labor Front " and dismissed it from the publisher. In the spring of 1934 he emigrated with his wife to Palestine ( after her daughters had already done this a year ago ). In the autumn of the same year he opened a solo exhibition in the views of the city and its surroundings in color and as pencil drawings, its vast landscapes of those days, as well as a portrait of Kurt Blumenfeld, the President of the Zionist Organization in the trading house " Maskit " in Jerusalem for Germany. Later, his work has been shown in other cities in Israel, and he also participated in a collective exhibition of Israeli artist. He used the land much to travel, and everywhere he made pictures, mostly watercolors and drawings: Views of Tiberias, Safed, Jerusalem, the inside of a Jerusalem synagogue, the city's markets, camels on the Yarkon River, bathers by the sea and more. In the 1940s he produced a mural in the hotel " Eden " in Jerusalem.

Although he had received an academic education, Duke was an outspoken Impressionist, most of his paintings bear witness by their calm mood and the chosen selection of sounds. Here and there, however, his paintings show an extremely expressive side. Among his best works are portraits in pastel colors, landscapes in mixed media and especially free compositions to musical themes, which document his love for music. In these compositions not only his artistic power comes to the fore, but also his personal culture that gave these pictures the outstanding level of artistic design.