Featured Hermann Fechenbach Woodcut Print (O.L / 1940)

This is a woodcut print by the German Jewish artist Hermann Fechenbach. A man who lived a hard Life as a German-born Jewish citizen. Born in 1897, his love of art grew early, he gave up on academic work quickly in favour of his retreat into drawing and painting. He was an extremely well loved German artist by 1923 and his art generally sold out post exhibition. He was drafted into WW1 is 1916 where as sole survivor of a grenade attack he left with one leg, an injury that affected his ability to exhibit later. Blacklisted by the Nazi regime in 1933 and no longer being allowed to exhibit he and his family eventually left Germany in 1938 for Palestine but after just a few months deemed the country unsuitable for their family and moved to England in 1939. He then resumed making and selling prints to pay for his family to move to Argentina and out of the dangers of Nazi Germany, he raised enough for his mother and father to move, to live with his brothers there but tragically his twin sister Rosa died in a Nazi concentration camp before being able to leave Germany. In 1940, Fechenbach was detained as a suspect alien and originally interned in Bury he protested his treatment and started a hunger strike, he was then sent to prison in Liverpool. Released from prison in 1941 he then went on to create many more prints but not without struggle.

Hermann Fechenbach had to struggle his whole life through many small and monumental hurdles. I have outlined some of his life but their is a website solely dedicated to him well worth a look I will link here : http://www.hermannfechenbach.com/photo_intro.html
The photo of him attached below is from this website.

I found this for sale at an auction with a low estimate of £10-20 I think. The print gained some notice eventually selling to me for £50. I couldn’t bear to see it go elsewhere. This print being made in 1940 seems to correspond with the times between his attempts to save his family from the Nazi regime and his internment as an alien suspect.

I have no knowledge of the subject in the print. There is simply the monogram O.L which will refer to the name of the subject and is the key to unlocking the final mystery of the print. If you have any ideas on who it may be feel free to share, clue is most likely in the medal if anybody can identify it and also in the lanyard item he is wearing.

Hope you like the print, glad I can share it somewhere.

 

That looks spot on to me davey! Nice! You can subtlety see the lions and unicorns too not in any detail. Brilliant, gives me a narrowed jumping off point for research. Thanks

 

It is beautiful, Nathan. He clearly was a very accomplished artist.

 

Wow, thanks for sharing this!