Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

HIRSCHFELD MACK'S HUMANISM Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Isle o f Man Rodney James t ig Hirschfeld Mack's name is synonymous inAustraliawith the Bauhaus. The artist's formative years were spent at the Weimar Bauhaus in Germany between 1919 and 1925, initially as an apprentice to Lyonel Feininger and from 1922 as a journeyman in the Printing Workshop. A resident in Australia from 1940 until his death in 1964, Hirschfeld Mack single-mindedly espoused Bauhaus principles in art and design through his teaching, principally as art master at Geelong Grammar School (1942-55), and in the production of a substantial body of prints, watercolours and paintings. The Queensland Art Gallery holds a small, representative collection of the artist's middle to late works, including five abstract works on paper — the earliest dated 1940, the latest 1962. Isle o f Man 1940 distinguishes itself from the later works by virtue of its connection to a specified place and time. In mid-1940 Hirschfeld Mack was interned as a German alien on the Isle of Man. He was subsequently deported to Australia aboard the Dunera in July and detained at camps at Hay, Orange and Tatura until his eventual release in early 1942. First-hand accounts of the camps on the Isle of Man and aboard the 'hell-ship' Dunera indicate the sorts of hardships experienced by inmates. The young Harry Seidler recorded in a diary the 'shock, frustration and boredom' of the Isle of Man camps.1For refugees from National Socialism, as Seidler and Hirschfeld Mack were, to be branded a security risk was the ultimate irony. Hirschfeld Mack's difficulties in these years are mirrored by a series of pessimistic figurative works which posit 'the individual as the powerless centre of mankind'.2At about the same time he also produced highly charged expressionist indictments ofwar such as the unequivocal War (As I see it — There is no glory about it — what so ever!) c.1940 (Queensland Art Gallery). It is testament to Hirschfeld Mack's enduring faith in art and humanity that throughout this period he was also able to produce work that celebrated the unity of 'mankind' using a visual vocabulary drawn from earlier Bauhaus experiments in light, colour and form. The 1940 watercolour Isle of Man belongs to this category. It is distinguished by its concentration on a planar pictorial composition based on interlinked organic forms and overlapping tonal contrasts. Line is the dominant motivating element in the later abstract compositions. In two of these, Hirschfeld Mack's linear approach makes use of a monotype technique developed with Paul Klee in 1922. The difficulty of categorising works by Hirschfeld Mack along stylistic grounds is made apparent on closer inspection of these works. He frequently reworked favourite motifs; abstract and semi-figurative elements are used interchangeably; he also tended to work concurrently in different styles and media. In his first exhibition in Australia held in 1946 at the Rowden White Library, Melbourne University, Hirschfeld Mack displayed the watercolours under five different and seemingly contradictory classifications.3 Hirschfeld Mack's stylistic 'island-hopping' belies his Bauhaus pedigree. Between the extremities of his representational and abstract works, however, there lies a consistency of approach which situates his creative endeavours within a deeply felt humanist outlook. Avalorisation of the creative process lies at the core of Hirschfeld Mack's humanism: formal elements gain meaning through the 'inner compulsion' of the artist who is guided by fundamental ideas to do with unity, balance and order. Isle o f Man emphasises a central pivot as a vector for unfolding energy and light. Controlled wave-like patterns expand out from this centre, gently swelling and contracting from the pressures exerted from the middle apex of two conjoined triangles. An overall unity is achieved through the use of alternating colour bands and the arrangement of recognisable shapes such as triangles, ellipses and semicircles which in turn are contained within larger units of the same forms. There is a certain predictability about the overlapping of colours, although, like Paul Klee to whom he is often compared, Hirschfeld Mack used entirely different colours where shapes intersect. An equally fundamental emphasis on unified compositional design is apparent in the later watercolours held in the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. Abstract 1958 and Abstract 1962, for example, fix the line and plane to a central radiating core, not dissimilar to Wassily Kandinsky's tendency in the 1920s to make use of centripetal/centrifugal forces which draw forms towards the centre or, alternatively, push them away. Facing page Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Germany/Australia 1893-1964 Isle of Mart 1940 Watercolour over pencil on wove paper 19.7 X 28.4cm Gift of Mrs L. Hirschfeld Mack 1976 Queensland Art Gallery 164 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965