Painter and graphic artist Ernest Neuschul was born into a Jewish family in Aussig, Austria-Hungary (now Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic) in 1895. He studied in Prague and later, Vienna, initially influenced by Expressionism. During the First World War he moved to Cracow, Poland in 1916 to avoid conscription. Afterwards, he studied at the Academy of Arts in Berlin and in Prague met the Dutch-Javanese dancer Takka-Takka (Lucie Lindemann, 1890-1980), whom he married in 1922. She became his first principal model; he designed her costumes, and they toured Europe together as a Javanese dance couple, with Neuschul adopting the name 'Yoga-Taro'. In 1919, following his first solo exhibition in Prague, Neuschul was recognised as one of the leading exponents of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement. As a socialist and member of the Communist Party (KPD), his subjects reflected his commitment to recording the lives of working people and he joined the anti-fascist Novembergruppe (Chair, 1932).
In 1927 Neuschul held a solo exhibition in Berlin, becoming Chair of drawing and painting at the Charlottenburg Municipal Art School (1931) and Professor of Fine Art at the Berlin Academy of Fine Art (1932). Following the rise of Nazism, he was dismissed from his Professorship and labelled a 'degenerate artist'. At the invitation of the Moscow Artists Association, he moved to Moscow in 1935, but returned to Aussig in 1936, where his work was slashed and disfigured with swastikas in 1937. In 1938, Neuschul left for Prague with his second wife, painter Christl Blell, and his son, Tyl Peter, fleeing on the last train which the Nazis allowed out of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He fled to Britain with the help of David Grenfell, Labour MP for Gower, Wales, whose portrait he painted in gratitude. During the war he lived in Mumbles, Swansea, painting local working people, including steelworkers, miners and cockle pickers, and portraits including Mayor of Swansea, J.R. Martin, and Lewis Jones MP. He exhibited with the Free German League of Culture at the Wertheim Gallery, London in 1939, lectured for the Anglo-Sudeten Club and contributed articles to the Club's newspaper (1942-45). In 1944 his paintings were exhibited at the National Museum of Wales.
In 1946 Neuschul settled in Hampstead, anglicising his name to Ernest Norland, but despite a solo exhibition at Twenty Brook Street Gallery in 1950, struggled to repeat his earlier success. Retrospectives were held in Jerusalem (1959) and Berlin (1966). His late work gradually moved towards simplified figuration and eventually to full abstraction.
Ernest Neuschul died in London, England in 1968. His first UK retrospective was held posthumously at the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery in 1988. His work is represented in UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea, and Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, as well as in public collections in Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia.
