Draft:Eric Isenburger

Eric Isenburger attended the Musterschule (a secondary school focusing on science and modern languages) in Frankfurt am Main from approximately 1912 to 1920. In 1920, he began studying art at the Frankfurt Art Academy (Städelschule); at the same time, he was enrolled at the Frankfurt School of Applied Arts and was a student in the graphic arts class of Franz Karl Delavilla. After an extensive trip to Italy, including Rome, Isenburger completed his studies at the School of Applied Arts in 1925. After moving to Barcelona, ​​he had his first own studio and studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes. On December 5, 1927, Isenburger married Anna Jula Elenbogen in Warsaw.

In 1928, they moved to Vienna, where he took a studio apartment on Spittelauer Platz. During this time, Isenburger worked as a freelance artist and stage designer. In 1929, he traveled to Southern France.

After his mother's suicide in 1931 and the subsequent inheritance, Jula and Eric Isenburger decided to move to Berlin and have their own studio built on Paulsbornerstraße. They then traveled to the Italian Riviera. Between January and March 1933, after smaller group exhibitions, Isenburger had his first solo exhibition at the Wolfgang Gurlitt Gallery. ^[1] After the Reichstag fire and a defamatory review in a National Socialist magazine about Isenburger's "degenerate, Jewish art," Gurlitt advised the Isenburgers to leave Germany and go to Paris for the time being. In the years 1933 to 1934, after moving to Paris, Isenburger experienced a creative crisis. He experimented with abstraction and surrealism and worked primarily on paper and parchment. He participated in the Salon d'Automne 1933 and Salon de Printemps 1934 with older works.

In June 1934, he participated in the emigrant exhibition at Parsons’ Galleries in London. In January 1935, Isenburger had his first successful exhibition at the "Galerie Moderne" in Stockholm. Limited financial resources forced the Isenburgers to spend the summer of 1935 in Nice, where they finally moved permanently in 1937. Between December 1936 and January 1937, a second successful exhibition followed at the Galerie Moderne.

Around 1938, the Isenburgers moved to Grasse to a rented farmhouse, which would henceforth form the basis of their livelihood.

In the years 1939 to 1940, the artist was interned as a German immigrant in Les Milles and later in St. Nicolas; during this time, he created numerous drawings of his fellow prisoners. In September 1940, Isenburger fled and waited in Nice for an opportunity to leave the country. In 1941, Isenburger met Pierre Bonnard in Cagnes-sur-Mer; he was granted a visa for the USA and, with the help of the Emergency Rescue Committee, traveled via Spain and Lisbon in March.

In the same year, his first successful solo exhibition took place at the Knoedler Gallery in New York, followed by eight more until 1962.

From 1956, Isenburger was an Associate Member ("ANA") of the National Academy of Design in New York, was elected a full member ("NA") a year later^[2] and taught there until 1980. In June 1962, Isenburger had another solo exhibition at the Wolfgang Gurlitt Gallery in Munich.

Between the 1950s and 1980s, he created sketches, drawings, and pastels on numerous trips, especially to Southern Europe, which often later served as templates for oil paintings.

Isenburger died in New York City in 1994.^[3]

• Eric und Jula Isenburger. Von Frankfurt nach New York. Giersch Museum of the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main 2017. Catalog.

• Dieter Distl (Hrsg.): Eric Isenburger. 1902–1994. Ausgewählte Werke. Bickel, Schrobenhausen 1999, ISBN 3-922803-31-8, (Ausstellungskatalog, Neuburg an der Donau, Städtische Galerie am Rathausfletz, 2. Mai – 13. Juni 1999).
• Martin Meisiek: Studien zum Leben und Werk des Malers Eric Isenburger (1902–1994). Magisterarbeit an der Universität Regensburg. 2003 (nicht veröffentlicht).
• Martin Meisiek: Exilerfahrung in der Malerei des Expressiven Realismus. In: Anke Köth, Kai Krauskopf, Andreas Schwarting (Hrsg.): Building America