Sculptor Elsa Fraenkel (nee Rothschild) was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Bensheim, Germany on 25 August 1892. She trained at the Karlsruhe Academy. In 1918 she married and moved to Hanover, where she was a member of Dadaist Kurt Schwitters’ cultural circle in the 1920s. Their friendship was later rekindled in exile in England and she brought with her two artworks by Schwitters, including Untitled: für Frau Fränkel (Ben Uri Collection), inscribed to her and dated 1928, providing a direct link between these two refugees from Nazism. Fraenkel remained in Hanover until 1933, travelling annually to Paris. She specialised in portrait sculpture, and although uncommissioned, her works were exhibited in Hanover, Berlin, Brunswick and Mannheim. Her sculpture of a young girl/bust of a girl was purchased in 1927 by the Landesmuseum, Hanover.
Following her divorce in 1933, Fraenkel returned to Paris, before immigrating to London, bringing many of her sculptures with her and later establishing a studio in St John’s Wood. In 1935 Fraenkel exhibited six works with the Leicester Galleries and the following year participated in Ben Uri's annual open show. Ben Uri subsequently commissioned her portrait of Haham, Sir Moses Gaster, Head of the Sephardi community. She exhibited frequently with the Women's International Art Club (WIAC) between 1937 and 1953, showing works including her head of Chinese student Chungsen Chou (Ben Uri Collection) in 1937, as well as two versions of the mathematician Prof. Dr. Conrad Muller (one with eyes open and one with eyes closed) in 1938, Sidney Sabin in 1942, and Shirley Solomon (Ben Uri Collection) in 1948. In 1947 she held a three-person show at Ben Uri Gallery with fellow emigres Walter Trier and Elsa Fraenkel, and in 1951 participated in Ben Uri’s Festival of Britain Anglo-Jewish Exhibition. She was also a member and officer of the Essex Art Club, with whom she also exhibited. In 1970 she moved to India to be with her daughter and family.
Elsa Fraenkel died in Bangalore, India on 13 June 1975. Her work is represented in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Hove Museum, Brighton, the Leo Baeck Institute in London, and Tate.
