26 April 2019

Preview: Catalogue of the exhibition 'Three with a pen' about illustrators, comic artists at Jewish Museum Vienna

From 8 May until 17 November at 'Three with a pen', the Jewish Museum Vienna will exhibit illustrations, documents of the work and life of three artists - Lily Renée, Bil Spira, Paul Peter Porges - who were born in Vienna and had to move to other countries caused by the Nazi regime.

Fashion.at took a closer look at the press material such as the photos on view on this page - left, Bil Spira at Böhmischer Prater in Vienna, or right, Lily Renée receiving the Gold Award of Honor for services to the Republic of Austria in New York - and the (German/English) catalogue which starts with an introduction by Jewish Museum Vienna Director Danielle Spera and articles by exhibition curators Sabine Bergler and Michael Freund. Danielle Spera provides insights into the making of such as that the project 'Three with a pen' was initiated at a meeting with Austrian journalist Elizabeth T. Spira (1942–2019), a relative of Bil Spira.

At the next article, written by the curators Sabine Bergler and Michael Freund, the reader gets an oversight over the art of illustration and its makers; even how the illustrators were connected - like by an invisible thread such as Lily Renée and Lisl Weil (escaped from the Nazis too). "...both worked for the subsidiary of the Salzburg traditional costume [Trachten] company Lanz on Fifth Avenue" the reader finds out at page 19 of the catalogue. At this time, the reader is probably already captured by the way how the authors throw light on history happened not so long ago; a history which is difficult to understand in all its facets. The next chapter is contributed entirely to Lily Renée and starts with sketches by the artist such as textile designs for Lanz. Michael Freund is the author of this chapter, entitled '"Willheim means I want to go home" The Magical Fantasy of Lily Renée'. The article evokes lively impressions of Lily Renée's childhood, youth in Vienna and life as artist in New York - with special focus on the work as female illustrator in the field comics which is until today dominated by men.

The chapter 'Willheim means I want to go home' is followed by five further articles. The eight chapters catalogue has more than 170 pages and is illustrated richly.

fig. from left: Bil Spira surrounded by admirers in the Böhmischer Prater, Vienna, 1938. Photo: © Robert Haas. Right: Presentation of the Gold Award of Honor for services to the Republic of Austria to Lily Renée by Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, in the presence of the Consul General Helmut Böck, Austrian Consulate General in New York, 27 September, 2018. Photo: © Generalkonsulat.

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