Albert Reuss

Born: 1889

Death: 1975

Biography:

Albert Reuss was a painter and sculptor born in Vienna who fled to England in 1938 following the Anschluss, Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria to the German Reich. In the process, Reuss lost many members of his family, and the reputation he had built up as an artist in Vienna. He continued to work as an exiled artist in England, but his style changed dramatically, reflecting the trauma he had suffered. Several provincial galleries in England hold his work, most notably Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (the Belvedere Gallery) and the Albertina both in Vienna, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel.

Albert Reuss was the son of Hungarian Jews, Ignaz Reisz (1855–1911) and Sidonia née Freund (1861–1928). Ignaz was a Fleischhauermeister and Fleischhändler, a master butcher and meat trader. The couple at some stage moved to Malacky, in former Hungary, now Slovakia, where their first three sons were born. In the late 1880s, the family moved to Vienna, where Albert was born, followed by a further six children, three of whom died in infancy, leaving seven surviving children in all. The family name Reisz was changed by the Austrian authorities to Reiss. From a young age, Albert became estranged from his family. A frail, sickly and vulnerable child, he seemed neither to fit into nor to belong to the family into which he was born. He suffered from ill-health and had considerable difficulties with social interaction throughout his life. He was introduced to the world of art by a rich uncle, Baron Andreas Ritter von Reisinger, who was married to his father‘s sister, and who appears to have instilled in the young boy a life-long inferiority complex. Albert’s artistic abilities emerged when he was only five years old, and at the age of 14, he applied, unsuccessfully, to the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. Unable to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, he was obliged, on leaving school, to assist his father as a butcher. Given his delicate disposition and artistic sensibilities, working at the butchery was not an effective fit. There followed a series of equally unsuitable jobs, including salesman, childminder and actor, all of which ended in dismissal. These repeated experiences of rejection only added to his lack of self-worth. He became determined to teach himself by copying the Old Masters in the Belvedere Gallery and managed to gain several commissions for these paintings, as well as some commissions to paint portraits.
At the beginning of the First World War, he was obliged to undertake military service, but was allowed to do this in Vienna, due to his poor health, avoiding frontline duty. In 1915 he met his future wife, Rosa Feinstein (1891–1970), the daughter of Benjamin Feinstein, a merchant, and his wife Hinda née Prechner. Benjamin was born in Warsaw, Poland, which was at that time under the rule of Imperial Russia, making him and his family technically Russian. Rosa offered Albert the acceptance and encouragement he so desperately needed. Their marriage lasted for 55 years, and throughout that time she acted, in effect, as his agent and manager.
The couple were married in December 1916, but shortly after, Albert contracted tuberculosis and spent 18 months in a sanatorium. He took advantage of his confinement by drawing portraits of fellow patients, from which he began to establish a reputation as a portrait artist. Once he had recovered, the couple moved to an apartment at Möllwaldplatz 3, Vienna IV, where Albert established his studio, and in October 1922 they converted to Christianity. Also at this time, Albert started to use the surname "Reuss", though this change of name was not officially recognised until 1931. A young student, Sylvio Metzger, also moved into the apartment and developed a life-long friendship with Albert and Rosa. A large body of correspondence between Sylvio and the couple has survived, and is stored, along with much other documentation, at "basis wien" in Vienna.
During the 1920s, Reuss gradually established himself as an artist, working initially in portraiture, then developing an individual style of line drawing, which he called his linear work. In 1922, he exhibited a portrait at the Vienna Secession, (also known as the Union of Austrian Artists), and had his first solo exhibition at the Würthle Galerie in 1926. In 1930, a newspaper proprietor sponsored him to spend a year in Cannes, where he completed forty portraits and landscapes in oil, following which, he had a second solo exhibition at the Würthle Galerie in 1931. His exhibitions received good reviews in the Viennese press. Reuss subsequently became a member of the prestigious artists' association, the Hagenbund, with whom he exhibited on a number of occasions during the 1930s.
From 1926 to 1938, Reuss taught at the Fachlehranstalt für das Kleidungsgewerbe (The Specialist Teaching Institute for the Clothing Industry). In 1934, he also started working as a sculptor, creating, among other things, portrait busts of the Viennese councillor Johann Grassinger and of the actress Maria Eis, as well as a study of his wife Rosa, now in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Throughout this period, the couple developed a middle-class lifestyle, and filled their flat in Vienna with numerous books, artefacts and artworks, including two works by Egon Schiele. Thus, by 1938, Reuss had become an established and relatively prosperous painter and sculptor in Vienna. However, this period coincided with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, and by this time, it became clear that Albert and Rosa would have to flee their home country.

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