Emy Roeder: letter to Otto Herbig (22 february 1943)
To receive a letter from a place where the fruit trees bloom in February and there was 30 degrees heat may have seemed odd to its Berlin recipient in the winter of 1943, during the war. Its author did not live there voluntarily however.
Eric Isenburger: Paul Westheim, painting (circa 1932)
Eric Isenburger moved to Berlin in 1931, and between then and 1933, his output primarily took the form of portraits of his intellectual contemporaries and artist friends. Among them is the oil painting Paul Westheim, which depicts the successful art critic, art historian, publisher and collector of modern art.
Eric Isenburger: Porträt Eva Marcu (1937)
In the early years of their exile, Eric and Jula Isenburger lived off an inheritance and had no financial worries. This was particularly helpful since the painter Eric Isenburger was suffering from a creative crisis.
Eric Isenburger: Release document Les Milles (1940)
Internment and escapeIn September 1939, Eric Isenburger responded to a nationwide call for foreigners in France to report themselves for registration, whereupon he was interned in the Les Milles camp. Just under five months later he managed to secure his release with the help of the camp doctor.
Eric Schaal: Draft letter on Das Antlitz des schöpferischen Menschen (undated)
The incomplete artistic balance sheet of the photographer's lifeThe estate of photographer Eric Schaal holds letter templates in several languages for his book project Das Antlitz des schöpferischen Menschen. In these letters, he asked artists and scientists for handwritten material for the planned book.
Eric Schaal: Photograph of Salvador Dalí (1939)
To coincide with the 1939 World's Fair, the Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí designed a gigantic underwater fantasy: a pavilion entitled Dream of Venus. During the preparations, Dalí criticised the organisers of the World's Fair bitterly for their narrow-mindedness, because they hadn't allowed him to give Botticelli's Venus the head of a fish.
Eric Schaal: Photograph of William Faulkner for the front page of Time (1939)
Even before emigrating, Eric Schaal had been engaged intensively with photography and taken portraits of artists. In 1936, he emigrated to the USA, where he made photography his profession.
Eric Schaal: Photographic portrait of Vicky Baum (ca. 1940)
The author and screenwriter Vicky Baum had come to live in the USA in 1932; she enjoyed a successful career there from the beginning of the 1930s. In 1939 and 1940 she travelled several times from her home in Hollywood to New York to prepare the Broadway première of her play Summer Night.
Eric Schaal: Portrait photograph by Arnold Schönberg (1940)
Eric Schaal's photographic portraits of Arnold Schoenberg were likely taken in December of 1940. The composer was in New York for the world premiere of his Chamber Symphony No. 2, Op 38, which was performed for the first time on December 15 under the direction of Fritz Stiedry.
Eric Schaal: Portrait photograph of Alfred Döblin (1939)
At the end of April 1939, the author Alfred Döblin sailed from Le Havre to New York to attend the world conference of the PEN Club. He arrived in New York on 6 May. There he saw his son for the first time, who had emigrated to the USA in 1935.
