Philipp Fehl

Philipp Fehl

Philipp Fehl at Work in 1996
Born 9 May 1920
Vienna, Austria
Died 11 September 2000 (aged 80)
Rome, Italy
Resting place
Prima Porta Cemetery
Rome, Italy
Nationality United States - Austrian
Known for Painting, Pen and Ink, Art Historian
Spouse(s) Raina Fehl
Website
http://www.philippfehl.com/

Philipp Fehl (May 9, 1920 – September 11, 2000) was an artist and art historian. He was born in Austria. He became a refugee in 1938, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1941. He became an artist, author and lecturer at several universities. He retired as Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1990. In the same year he and his wife the classicist Raina Fehl, initiated the Cicognara Project at the Vatican Library. The Fehls lived primarily in Rome from 1990 until his death in 2000. He is buried at Prima Porta in Rome. He and Raina were married for 54 years. Raina died in 2009. They had two daughters, Katharine, "Kathy Fehl", and Caroline Coulston.

Early life

From childhood on he drew and painted whenever possible. He was the oldest child of Hugo and Frieda Fehl and the brother of Arnold Fehl. He was the cousin of the renowned ballet photographer Fred Fehl. His older cousin, Paul Eisler, attended Gymnasium, and Fehl determined that he also wanted this classical higher education for gifted students.

He was accepted and attended Bundes Real Gymnasium and continued to attend school after the Anschluß. After Matura, (graduation), he emigrated to England . He worked for a time in Birmingham as an apprentice commercial artist with the firm Stagg Displays before immigrating to the United States of America in 1940, becoming a citizen in 1943.

Early work

From 1941 through 1942 he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Fine Arts, Painting. In 1943 he enrolled in the US Army. From 1945 to 1946 he worked as instructor to the Office of the Provost Marshal General's re-educational program for German Prisoners of War at Camp Butner, North Carolina. In 1945 he married Raina Fehl daughter of the writer Erich Fritz Schweinburg, also born in Vienna. After his discharge from the Army, he and Raina were given appointments as interrogators at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal (1946–1947).

Through his work at the trials, he became well acquainted with a number of war criminals who had exercised direct influence on German art as well as others who committed crimes against humanity. He gives detailed descriptions of his work at the trials in the portion of his memoirs entitled "The Ghosts of Nuremberg", The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 229, no. 3, March 1972, 70–80.

He returned to Stanford University, taking a B.A. in Romance Languages, French, and an M.A. in History of Art. His Master's Thesis, "A Stylistic Analysis of Some Propaganda Posters of World War II", 1948, showed the existence, and defined the formal manifestations of the international "Blut und Boden" style which governed the propaganda art of countries confronting each other in World War II. In 1948 he moved back to Chicago, where he continued his studies at the University of Chicago in painting and graphic arts as well as history of art. At the University of Chicago, he was friends with the now renowned philosopher, Seth Benardete and the comedians Severn Darden, Elaine May and Mike Nichols. In 1963 he obtained his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago (his thesis was partly published in 1972 as "The Classical Monument", see bibliography).

Teaching

"His legacy resides in a long and distinguished list of art historical publications, in thousands of witty and melancholy drawings, in the microfiches of the Fondo Cicognara, and in the enjoyment of art he inspired in his students and friends. He also entrusted to us an indelible testimony of the inhumanity of Nazi Europe. In person, he was distinguished by a quick, nervous, ironic intelligence, an engaging warmth, a sense of humor. He spoke English with a vast vocabulary and the accent of his native Vienna, absorbing ideas and parsing them with broad learning and brilliant asides. As an artist he thought in images and metaphors that enlivened his conversation and sharpened his memory. He wrote as he spoke, with wit and passion. He was never dull."

Marilyn Perry[1]

He and his work are discussed in the comic-philosophical novel Harmony Junction by Goddard Graves (2009, privately published).

While studying he also began to teach, 1949–1950 photography with the Youth Program of Temple Sinai, Chicago, 1951–1952 as director of The Bateman School, Chicago, 1951–1954 as a lecturer in art at University College, University of Chicago ("Experimental figure drawing according to 18th century methods") and 1951–1963 as an instructor in Home Studies, University of Chicago ("Elementary Figure Drawing in the Academic Tradition"). He started academic teaching in 1951 as a lecturer at the University of Chicago and, after holding a number of other academic appointments and receiving numerous honours (see list), retired in 1990 as Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois.

He began to make pen and ink drawings of bird like characters (who closely resembled him physically) dressed in the peruke and trousers of the 18th century. He called these drawings "capricci". The bulk of these capricci are now preserved in the Exile's archives at the German National Library, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Philipp and Raina Fehl in London in the early 1960s

Education

Teaching

Honors

Offices

Membership in Learned Societies

College Art Association of America, Renaissance Society of America, South Eastern Renaissance Society, Central Renaissance Society, American Society for Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Midwest Art History Society, Midwest Medieval Society of America, International Survey of Jewish Monuments.

Listed in

Artist

Capricci Pen and Ink:

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5211898 http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/fehlp.htm

Oils

Publications of Works of Art

Carolina Quarterly, Winter 1966, 21–27. Sample Copy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1968: "Series", 5 pages. Lillabulero, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, VII, 1969, 86, 96, 100. The Bird (serigraph and original pen and ink drawings), Finial Press, Urbana, Illinois, 1970. Capricci, selection and introduction by Wilfried Skreiner, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, 1971. Also Published in German, same title. Voyages, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, IV, 1971, nos. 1–2, 39, 63, 67; nos. 3–4, 64, 65, 85, 89, 163; V, 1973–1974, nos. 1–4, 109. Au Verso (St. John's College, Sante Fe, New Mexico), 1972, "Aging", 10 pages. North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin, XII, 1975, no. 4; 11. Archaeological News, IV, 1975, no. 1; 7, 11. Polity, Summer 1977, title page. Birds of a Feather (with an introduction by Maurice Cope), University of Illinois Press, Champaign, Illinois, 1991.

Critiques and reproduction of drawings in newspapers

Daily Tar Heel, The Courier, The News-Gazette, Kleine Zeitung, Kultur, William and Mary News, The Cavalier Daily, Illini Week.

Exhibits of Philipp Fehl's Works of Art

One Man Shows

Art Gallery of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1968, 1970.

Neue Galerie am Joanneum, Graz, "Capricci," 1971.

Roberts Gallery, London, 1971.

Galerie im Stock, Vienna, Austria, 1973.

Folger Shakespeare Library (Ann Hathaway Gallery), Washington D.C. "Birds on Crutches," 1973.

Peoria Art Guild, Peoria, Illinois, "Birds of a Feather," 1975.

University of Illinois (Department of Art and Design), 1969, 1974.

College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1977.

Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, "New Capricci," 1979.

Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass., "New Capricci," 1979.

Società Dante Alighieri, Venice, Italy, 1980–81.

Department of Art, Tel Aviv University, 1982.

Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, 1982.

Kunsthistorisches Institut, Universität Kiel, 1983.

Gallery ?Nature's Table?, Urbana, Illinois, 1984.

University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, Virginia, April–June 1986 (a retrospective exhibition of Capricci: "A Poet's Progress"). Catalogue essay by Paul Barolsky.

University of Delaware Perkins Student Center Gallery, A Poet's Progress," April 1987.

Hallside Gallery at the University of Utah, Department of Medical Illustration, Salt Lake City, "Capricci," October–November, 1987.

Gallery ?Nature's Table?, Urbana, Illinois, "New Capricci," November–December 1987.

Gallery 107 Mercer Street, New York, New York, "Capricci," April–May, 1989.

Krannert Museum of Art and Kinkaid Pavilion, "Birds of a Feather," September, 1991.

Miracles Cafe", Cardiff By The Sea, California, "Capricci" June–July 1992.

Central European University, Prague, "Birds of a Feather," Spring, 1993.

Exil Archiv, Die Deutsche Bibliotek, Adickesallee 1, D-60322 Frankfurt am Main, November 2001 through early January 2002.

Group Shows

Exline, Fehl, and Lancaster, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, 1971.

Figures, The Anderson Gallery, Champaign, Illinois: April–May, 1986.

Rethinking the Avant-Garde, Kotonah Gallery, Kotonah, New York, April–May, 1986: catalogue by Jonathan Fineberg.

Annual Exhibitions

Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago, 1948–1963. (drawings, prints, glass-etchings).

University of Illinois Faculty Show, Krannert Art Museum, 1969–1986.

Works in Public Collections

Neue Galerie am Joanneum, Graz, Austria.

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, N.C.

Krannert Art Museum and Kinkaid Pavilion (University of Illinois), Champaign, Illinois.

U.S. Embassy to the Czech Republic, Prague

Bibliography

Books

Articles

Tapes for the Blind

Entries in Encyclopedias

Book Reviews

In : College Art Journal, Art Digest, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Renaissance Quarterly.

See also

References

  1. Marilyn Perry. Philipp P. Fehl: Artist, Scholar, Humanist, Witness (pp. 13-15) Artibus et Historiae no. 48 (XXIV)2003

External links

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