Friedrich Adler (29 April 1878 – c. 11 July 1942) was a Jewish-German artist,

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

. He was renowned for his accomplishments in designing metalwork in the Art Nouveau and

Art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

styles; he was also the first designer to use bakelite. He designed using a wide variety of objects and materials.

Biography

Adler was born on 29 April 1878 in

Laupheim Laupheim (; Swabian: ''Laoba'') is a major district town in southern Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Laupheim was first mentioned in 778 and gained city rights in 1869. One of the main trading routes, from Ulm to Ravensburg and then ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

to parents Karoline Frieda Sommer and pastry shop owner Isidor Adler. His birthplace is now the ''Café Hermes'', an Art nouveau building in the style of the late

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

. From 1894–1898 he studied at the Munich School of Applied Arts (now known as

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

). In 1902, Adler decided to undertake a second degree at the new teaching and research institute for applied and free art called Debschitz School studying under

Wilhelm von Debschitz Wilhelm Siegfried Kurt von Debschitz (21 February 1871 – 10 March 1948) was a German painter, interior designer, craftsman, art teacher and founding director of an influential art school in Munich. Early life and education He was born on 2 ...

and the sculptor

Hermann Obrist Hermann Obrist (23 May 1862 at Kilchberg (near Zürich), Switzerland – 26 February 1927, Munich, Germany) was a Swiss sculptor of the Jugendstil and Art Nouveau movement. He studied Botany and History in his youth; the influence of those s ...

. By 1903, he was teaching stucco technology at the same Debschitz School. From 1907 to 1914, and again from 1918 to 1933, he taught at the School for Applied Art in Hamburg (with a break in between for his military service during World War I). He drew closer to the Jewish religion as well as Jewish iconography and art, as Nazism grew. He designed two stained glass windows for the synagogue in his hometown. In 1914, for the Cologne Werkbund exhibition he designed the interior of a Jewish house of worship. After serving in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

from 1914 until 1918, changes in Adler's design work occurred and he stopped working in the Art Nouveau style. In his later life he focused on

batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...

and fabric printing, opening the, Adler Textildruckgesellschaft Hamburg (Adler Textile Printing Company Hamburg). In between, he also directed the mastery lessons in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, and was busy designing pieces in applied art for over fifty clients.

Death and legacy

On 11 July 1942, Adler, who was

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish, was deported to the

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

Auschwitz, where, judged too old to work, he was murdered soon afterwards. There is a

stolperstein A (; plural ; literally 'stumbling stone', metaphorically a 'stumbling block') is a sett-size, concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. The project, initia ...

in his memory at his last place of employment in Hamburg. In 1994, he was honored with a retrospective exhibition at Munich Stadtmuseum (Munich City Museum). Alder's work is included in the museum collection at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Personal life

In 1907, Adler married Bertha Haymann, who died of

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

in 1918. With Bertha he had five children, one of which was artist Paul "Pollo" Wilhelm Adler (1915–1944) who was murdered at Auschwitz. In 1920, Adler married a former student, Erika Fabisch, and together they had two children. In 1934, Erika Fabisch left with the children to

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

Biography

Death and legacy

Personal life

References

Further reading