Painter and sculptor Michael Henry Schreck was born to Orthodox American-Jewish parents in Tarnow, Austria-Hungary (now Poland) on 13 July 1901. He held American citizenship until 1929 when he applied for naturalisation in Austria. Interested in art from an early age, he was educated in Tarnow and Vienna and later studied fine art in Vienna. In 1923, upon the death of his father, he took over the family business manufacturing ladies clothing. Between 1934 and 1938, he frequently visited England on business and in 1935 he established Vienna Fashions Ltd manufacturing dresses of Viennese design in Holborn, London. Following the Anschluss (Nazi annexation of Austria) in March 1938, Schreck moved to England, renaming his company Michael Henry Limited.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War and the subsequent introduction of internment for so-called ‘enemy aliens’ in May 1940, Schreck was interned: firstly, in the notorious Warth Mills internment camp, outside Bury, Greater Manchester, where he produced a sketch detailing the appalling conditions entitled 'Agony' (1940, Ben Uri Collection); and subsequently in Onchan Camp on the Isle of Man. Schreck’s wife and children were also interned (1940-41) in a separate camp on the Isle of Man.
The whole family was released in November 1941, on condition that Schreck took employment as export manager with a clothing manufacturer in London. His company had ceased trading during his internment but after 1942 he attempted to revive it, employing his wife as secretary. Despite being granted naturalisation in 1948, he left shortly afterwards for Canada, settling in Outremont, Quebec, in 1953. He continued to make excursions to and networks within continental Europe, including in 1964 when he exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Paris, and was awarded the Grand Prix International, Deauville and a ‘Mention Grand Finale’ at the Prix International de Vichy.
In the late 1950s Schreck immigrated to the USA, where he remained for the rest of his life. His work included portraits, landscapes, riverscapes and latterly, abstracts, as well as sculpture, including modernist marbles and a number of bronzes in a Brutalist manner. A book on Shreck’s sculpture (authored by Alfred Werner) was published by the University of Miami Press in 1975. Michael Schreck died at his home in Hollywood, Florida, USA on 2 August 1999.
