Interned Artists: Ben Uri and the 80th Anniversary of Internment

Prior to his emigration to Britain, Fritz Solomonski was both artist and art historian, receiving his doctorate on German Expressionsim under Adolph Goldschmidt in Berlin, and studying with both Eugen Spiro and Willy Jaeckel. He was also musically inclined. German émigré, Klaus Hinrichsen (1912-2004), chronicler of art in internment, waspishly noted of their shared time in Hutchinson camp, that Solomonski "was a cantor […] a singer in a synagogue, beautiful voice, and indeed I think he was a much better singer than artist. But he was one of those people who can draw almost anything." Solomonski was also a signatory to the now famous 'Art Cannot Live Behind Barbed Wire' letter, published in the New Statesman and Nation in August 1940, pleading for the release of artist internees. In January 1944, he also became the first salaried secretary / curator to the Ben Uri Art Society, which provided a valuable support mechanism for many émigré artists, through its programme of exhibitions and acquisition, and other cultural activities. In his fictionalised account of internment ('Martin Millgate'), Hinrichsen described Solomonski's farewell gifts to him, one of which relates to Ben Uri's print: "He had done a somewhat idealised portrait drawing of Martin [Hinrichsen] and now gave him perhaps the only religious work done in the camp - a stencil print of God sending Elijah on his way to spread the word of the scriptures." Solomonski's original drawing was reproduced in The Camp Almanac. He returned to the theme after his release and contributed an oil version of Elijah to the Artists Aid Jewry exhibition held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1943. However, his career remained largely unfulfilled in England, despite attempts by his patron, Sir Samuel Courtauld, to persuade the Tate to acquire his work. Solomonski eventually immigrated to the USA in 1954, with a sojourn in Cuba in the late 1950s when he exhibited at the National Gallery in Havana. A copy of a begging letter to Professor Erwin Panofsky in New York, asking if any suitable teaching position might be found for an artist / art historian with his qualifications, remains poignantly in his archives, now held by the University of New Hampshire. Correspondence in German between Solomonski and his mother, who escaped to Palestine, are held in the Ben Uri archives.