Portrait of the painter "Schames" 1941

Date made: 1941

Artist: Dachinger, Hugo

Description: Head and shoulders portrait of clean-shaven man in shirt and tie with braces, produced in Mooragh Internment Camp during the Second World War. Inscription top right, "Portrait of the artist, Schames."

This would be Siegfried Samson Israel Schames (the name 'Israel' indicating a German Jew under Nazi law) who appears on the HO396 index of internees on ancestry.co.uk. He is the only person of that surname appearing on the 1939 Register, living at 5 West Heath Avenue, Golders Green, London b.31 December 1898, occupation: painter. He is mentioned in 'The Lion and the Star' (Friedman, Jonathan 1998) as Samson Schames, one of the most prominent Jewish artists in Frankfurt in the 1920s. In 1948, he immigrated to New York. While he continued to work as an artist, it took him several decades to gain recognition, and larger retrospectives in Germany only happened posthumously.

Background:
There were many celebrated modern artists interned on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, they were forced to flee Nazi Germany as the regime suppressed so called ‘degenerate’ art. Jewish artists were doubly vulnerable. We have an internationally significant collection of works created in the internment camps, with many of those artists going on to have high profile careers after the war.

Measurements: overall: 42 x 53 cm

Materials: Charcoal on paper

Object name: Drawing

Collection: Art Collection

ID number: 2002-0104

Subject tags : #WW2INTERNMENTMUSEUMCOLLECTIONS

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