Their escape routes, which in many cases crossed several continents, led them to exile in the United States, England, Israel, South America, or Australia. Others, however, managed to develop their careers uninterrupted during the Austro-fascist regime, the Nazi regime, and even in the postwar period.
Among the artists featured in the publication edited by Bernadette Reinhold are Margarete Berger-Hamerschlag, Fritz Czuczka, Bettina Bauer-Ehrlich, Richard Erdoes, Leo Glückselig, Kitty Goldman, Philipp Häusler, Fritz Janeba, Judith Katinka-Zweig, Paul Kirnig, Hans Felix Kraus, Fini Rudiger-Littlejohn, Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann, Carlo Pietzner, Ruth Rogers-Altmann, Franz Schuster, Bil Spira, Lisl Weil, and Eduard Wimmer-Wisgrill, among many others. Today, most of them have been forgotten or remain confined to specialized circles.
Through the research of international specialists, "Unwritten Biographies" reconstructs the lives and works of these creators, bringing to light a little-explored chapter of both the history of the university and Viennese Modernism. This volume examines a profoundly complex institutional reality, marked by exile, persecution, and the continuities and contradictions of the political and cultural context of the time.
Fritz Janeba, War I, 1941, watercolor on cardboard, also used as an illustration for the printed material for the remembrance initiative “Sonderfall” Angewandte: Im Fokus, Vienna, 2023, KUA/UAK 4454/1.
"Searching for clues in analog and digital archives, libraries, and art collections is not merely a means of counteracting the power to forget. More than just work on an unwritten biography, this is work on an erased biography".
Bernadette Reinhold.
This bilingual (German-English) edition brings together the latest research on the exile of Viennese Modernist artists and continues the work begun in the volume “Sonderfall Angewandte.” "The University of Applied Arts Vienna during Austrofascism, National Socialism, and the Post-War Period," published in 2024. As a continuation of that research, the book reconstructs the biographies of those who were linked to the institution between 1933 and 1955. Through these individual stories emerge narratives of exile, new beginnings, resistance, adaptation, and permanence within the system, while also offering a broader perspective on the development of Austrian art.
Allgemeine Abteilung (general unit) 1932/33 with Oskar Zimmermann, Josefine “Fini” Vogelbaum, Karl Tscherne, Gertrude Blum, Vera Raschkes (Kalmar), Erich Schmidt, Paul Lukacs and László Matulay, photographer unknown, KUA/UAK 19.699/FP.
Far from glorifying the institution, "Unwritten Biographies" proposes a critical review of its past and asserts the responsibility of the University, as an artistic, educational, and scientific institution, in preserving memory and building a more conscious understanding of history.
