My father was a violinist and chess enthusiast. As a professional artist, he had the opportunity to befriend notables in sports and culture.<\/p>\n
Among these celebrated personalities, he captured the great chess champions of the 1920\u2019s. I can visualize my father at tournaments, standing among other spectators with pencil and sketchbook in-hand.<\/p>\n
His portraits convey an intimacy of one who understands the game. Drawings show players in deep concentration, looking down at their chessboard and pieces. One feels the drama of the tournament in the quiet atmosphere of a smoke-filled room.<\/p>\n My father was born in M\u00e4hrisch Ostrau in 1893, then Austria-Hungary, today Ostrava in the Czech Republic. At the age of seventeen, he ventured to Berlin and studied etching with Hermann Struck and painting with Lovis Corinth. He became a successful painter and graphics artist renowned for portraits drawn from life.<\/p>\n He planned to attend an international chess tournament in Ostrava from July 1 to July 18, 1923<\/a>. In Berlin, he met with chess legend Dr. Emanuel Lasker, who, until 1921, had reigned as world chess champion for nearly three decades. As my father explained his intent to issue a portfolio of the players\u2019 portraits, Lasker enthusiastically endorsed the idea and later wrote the portfolio’s foreword.<\/p>\n By the end of 1923, my father\u2019s art was propelled in a new direction due to the widespread recognition of his sensational portraits. He was sought after, and became a leading press artist in Berlin.<\/p>\n However, when Hitler came to power in 1933, my father’s flourishing career abruptly ended.<\/p>\n His talent for quick-sketching and portraiture played a central role throughout his career and saved his life during the Holocaust<\/a>. In 1941, Nazi authorities looted his left-behind art in Berlin and Prague.<\/p>\n His wife Mathilde and young daughter Mirjam Helene were murdered in Auschwitz.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wandering and Rebuilding<\/strong><\/p>\n Torn from his memories, after liberation he created the powerful series,\u00a0“Because They Were Jews!<\/a>” The artwork shows the scenes he witnessed, from deportation to the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and further to other concentration camps until his liberation.<\/p>\n In Prague, in 1948, my father wed Hildegard Taussig, also a survivor. Their marriage began at a refugee\u2019s pace as they fled Stalinist Czechoslovakia to Israel a year later. In 1954, the couple immigrated to the United States with me, their daughter, also named Miriam. The family became American citizens in 1960 and dropped the double \u201cn\u201d spelling of their surname.<\/p>\n The walls of our St. Louis home were covered with postwar art produced during my father\u2019s journey from Czechoslovakia to Israel and the United States.<\/p>\n He had little to show from a collection of hundreds of paintings, drawings, etchings, and lithographs.<\/p>\n In June 1973, a search by my father turned up a portfolio at the Ostrava Museum. My father radiated with excitement when professional photos of his portfolio arrived.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see Miri, I was really a famous artist before the war. I was known for these portraits.\u201d<\/p>\n A significant piece of his legacy had escaped Nazi destruction. Thus, I was introduced to Emanuel Lasker, Richard R\u00e9ti, Ernst Gr\u00fcnfeld, Alexey Selesnieff, Machgielis (Max) Euwe, Savielly Tartakower, Efim Bogoljubow, Siegbert Tarrasch, Rudolf Spielmann, Akiba Rubinstein, Amos Pokorny, Karel Hrom\u00e1dka, Heinrich Wolf, and Max Walter.<\/p>\n A Vanished Portfolio<\/strong><\/p>\n At the time, I was unaware the portfolio would be a catalyst for unfolding layers of David Friedmann\u2019s history. I knew my father as a prolific artist with many talents, but it would take decades after his death in 1980, to piece together his extraordinary life and contributions to the art world.<\/p>\n I came to Ostrava in 1994. The city was as my father recalled. The air in this mining and metallurgical center still hinted of the smoke and smells of coal and sulfur. The chimneys and mining towers documented by my father were testimony to the city\u2019s industrial past. Two works<\/a> showing this side of Ostrava surfaced in the Visual Arts Collection of the Jewish Museum in Prague.<\/p>\n At the Ostrava Museum, no record existed of the titled portfolio, Das Schachmeister Turnier in M\u00e4hrisch Ostrau<\/em> (The Chess Master Tournament).<\/p>\n The portfolio my father had been thrilled to find had simply vanished.<\/p>\n I placed advertisements in newspapers, but received no response for any David Friedmann artwork. I continued my pursuit in Berlin.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Jewish Chess Masters<\/strong><\/p>\n In the 1920\u2019s, chess masters were the superstars of their time. An important newspaper without at least a page of daily chess news was inconceivable. It was gratifying to find Friedmann portraits in Berlin\u2019s newspapers.<\/p>\n The drawings were produced simultaneously with current events. I felt especially victorious each time a chess player appeared on the page. It became apparent my father attended chess matches \u2013 often. Editors throughout Germany and German-speaking countries, published the portraits repeatedly for years to come.<\/p>\n Anticipation was in the air as fragile pages were cautiously turned, hoping something new would emerge.<\/p>\n The majority of articles featured Bogoljubow, Capablanca, and the Jewish players Lasker, Tartakower, Nimzowitsch, and Spielmann.<\/p>\n In 1933, all professional careers of Jews in Germany ceased to exist. Alekhine and Bogoljubow played in Nazi-sponsored events.<\/p>\n Players of Jewish origin were not eligible for chess club membership in Germany or to participate in national tournaments. Despite worldwide fame, they shared the fate of millions of their fellow Jews \u2013 they suffered Nazi persecution, loss of home and country, and annihilation. As I would discover, German Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis brought my father\u2019s portfolios and artwork to England and other countries around the world.<\/p>\n Rediscovering the Portfolios<\/strong><\/p>\n At the newspaper archive in Berlin, the first drawings I came across were mainly published in the B.Z. am Mittag <\/em>and 8 Uhr-Abendblatt<\/em>. During subsequent research trips, an abundance of portraits turned up in numerous newspapers.<\/p>\n Most were signed by the subject and by the artist in various signatures and unknown versions: DaFrie, D.Fr, Fried, and Fr.Dav.<\/p>\n I had not paid much attention to artwork signatures at home. Now I saw that my father enjoyed changing his signature from the time of his early career until he could no longer paint.<\/p>\n The September 1996 issue of the U.S. Chess Federation magazine, Chess Life<\/em>, featured my article, \u201cDavid Friedmann\u2019s Artwork for Berlin\u2019s Newspapers,\u201d which tells the story of my father\u2019s interwar career and my search for his lost and looted art.<\/p>\n The editor chose to publish the portfolio portraits instead of those found in the newspapers. This brought about astounding results in terms of my search. I received news from a collector owning a portfolio titled K\u00f6pfe ber\u00fchmter Schachmeister<\/em> (Portraits of Famous Chess Masters).<\/p>\n An extraordinary find, because it had belonged to Emanuel Lasker. The title page carried a personal inscription handwritten to Lasker and signed by Dav. Friedmann, dated May 12, 1924, Berlin.<\/p>\n The Nazis drove Lasker out of Germany. He fled first to England, then from the U.S.S.R to the United States, all the while somehow managing to save my father\u2019s portfolio. The portfolio consisted of only 12 portraits, and was numbered 27\/50. This presumes there had been 50 portfolios with this title. Here was evidence that my father produced sets different from the original.<\/p>\n While my father searched for his art in Europe, this collector was in California, where he had purchased part of Lasker\u2019s estate. Twenty-three years later, at the collector\u2019s home, I joyously held Lasker\u2019s portfolio, a celebratory event I wished I could have shared with my father.<\/p>\n Finally, I saw an original portrait portfolio.<\/p>\n All of the lithograph prints bear the depicted player\u2019s signature, which, along with the portrait, were part of the original plate. A signature variation of Dav. Friedmann was handwritten in pencil on each print.<\/p>\n Additional portfolios with this title were found with 12 or 14 portraits. Portfolio No. 23 was purchased by a collector from a London dealer. Dutch collector Dr. Meindert Niemeijer donated Portfolio No. 28, which includes Ossip Bernstein and Richard Teichmann, to the National Library of the Netherlands, where it is now part of the second largest public chess collection in the world and can be viewed in its entirety online<\/a>.<\/p>\n Questions and Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n I speculate that my father\u2019s first sets were limited to those interested in the Ostrava tournament, a good reason to continue his numbered sets with the new broader title.<\/p>\n This also gave the opportunity to customize a portfolio according to a buyer\u2019s preference. Perhaps, besides Lasker, there were portfolios in the estates of other noted players. Rubinstein\u2019s portrait, also with a handwritten dedication, turned up at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.<\/p>\n Both had been sent to the masters in August 1923. I wonder if my father sent first prints to all the players in the tournament.<\/p>\n The Chess Life<\/em> article prompted author Felix Berkovitch to convey a most intriguing observation in a letter dated September 24, 1999:<\/p>\n \u201cEnclosed are several pages from Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s novel, The Defense<\/em> (G. P. Putnam\u2019s Sons, NY, 1964). I was stunned to read about an artist who had been sent by his newspaper to the Berlin International Chess Tournament to sketch the participants (page 125). It is a novel, but we can recognize a number of the real people. For instance, the German Grandmaster with an extinguished cigar is Emanuel Lasker. Turati, as he is described on page 96, is Richard R\u00e9ti. You may certainly guess who is the artist!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Back in Ostrava<\/strong><\/p>\n Then, in 2006, an incredible stroke of fortune.<\/p>\n I received news from Ji\u0159ina K\u00e1brtov\u00e1, the director of the Ostrava Museum, that she had found the lost Portfolio No. 4\/50 of Das Schachmeister Turnier<\/em>.<\/p>\n During the library’s move to the old city hall building, the portfolio surprisingly appeared at the bottom of a book stack!<\/p>\n K\u00e1brtov\u00e1 was emotional to find the long sought-after treasure.<\/p>\n How had the portfolio been lost? It had apparently not been registered as art, but rather as a book in the museum’s library collection. No one thought to look for it there.<\/p>\n In 2013, the museum held an exhibition about the fate of Ostrava’s Jews: “Nezapomn\u011bli jsme na n\u011b? Stopy \u017eidovsk\u00fdch rodin v Ostrav\u011b” (Have We Not Forgotten Them? Traces of Jewish Families in Ostrava).<\/p>\n David Friedmann was a featured biography.<\/p>\n The original chess player portraits were displayed along with digital prints of his renowned musician sketches printed in Berlin publications. In his diary, my father remarked upon his return to Ostrava in 1945 that he was an unknown.<\/p>\n Now, he was honored with an exhibition in his birthplace.<\/p>\n One feels the gap in the artist\u2019s life \u2013 the absence of artwork depicting family and the multitude of landscapes and still lifes he would have produced in various media.<\/p>\n Later the same year, Portfolio No. 26 of K\u00f6pfe ber\u00fchmter Schachmeister<\/em>, with 14 portraits, surfaced in the estate of New York chess player and collector Fred Snitzer.<\/p>\n Apparently, he had acquired the portfolio from a London art dealer in 1967. The Snitzer heirs contacted me, truly a heartwarming understanding of my quest.<\/p>\n Upon my recommendation, the portfolio was donated to the\u00a0John G.\u00a0White Chess and Checkers Collections,\u00a0Fine Arts & Special\u00a0Collections of the Cleveland Public Library, the largest chess collection in the world. It is now available online<\/a>.<\/p>\n American International Master of Chess John Donaldson wrote to me, \u201cYou are doing great work making your father’s art available to all to appreciate.\u201d<\/p>\n It is important to have my father’s works in public collections where people can view them and learn his story. That is my goal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chess and Life<\/strong><\/p>\n It is a victory that six portfolios were rescued from the devastation of World War II. The sixth find is in a private collection and holds only 10 portraits. Every portfolio has a story, but the details of their survival are mostly lost. I recall my father\u2019s passion for art, his enjoyment in playing chess, and even to teaching me to play.<\/p>\n Chances are slim that original portraits will still surface. It is likely that German Grandmaster Lothar Schmid, one of the world\u2019s leading collectors, would have found a portfolio if there was one to find. He remarked in a 1996 letter, \u201clet us try more or less together to find more about your father\u2019s steps.\u201d<\/p>\n At Berlin\u2019s 1925 Juryfreie Kunstschau<\/em> (Jury-free Art Show), four David Friedmann works were displayed, including the watercolor, Die Schachspieler <\/em>(The Chess Players).<\/p>\n This painting has a title, one of few found in exhibition and auction catalogs of the 1920\u2019s and early 1930\u2019s. Die Schachspieler<\/em>\u00a0represents hundreds of his lost works \u2013 testimony to Nazi-looted art and the destruction of European civilization.<\/p>\n The Nazis nearly erased my father from history, but they did not succeed. His life was a chronicle of resilience, courage and achievement.<\/p>\n David Friedmann\u2019s artwork has received international acclaim and his chess player portraits are recognized as iconic collectibles.<\/p>\n My father’s artwork launched a journey of discovery into his past, and a unique first-hand look into the fascinating world of\u00a0chess.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n —<\/p>\n This article has been published as part of\u00a0<\/em>Gesher L\u2019Europa<\/em><\/a>, the National Library of Israel\u2019s initiative to share stories and connect with people, institutions and communities in Europe and beyond.<\/em><\/p>\n For more about David Friedmann and to provide information you may have about existing works, please visit:\u00a0<\/em>www.davidfriedmann.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or the \u201c<\/em>David Friedmann\u2014Artist As Witness<\/em><\/a>\u201d Facebook page.<\/em><\/p>\n All images from <\/em>Das Schachmeister Tournier in M\u00e4hrisch Ostrau, Juli 1923 and <\/em>K\u00f6pfe ber\u00fchmter Schachmeister \u00a9 1999 Miriam Friedman Morris. All Rights Reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Friedmann’s daughter traveled the globe searching for his famous drawings, lost for decades<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":90412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[1742,649,1218,309],"tags2":[],"class_list":["post-90135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","tag-german-jewry","tag-gesherleuropa","tag-life-before-the-holocaust","tag-theholocaust"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Dr-Max-Euwe-Friedmann.jpg\")
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Efim Bogoljubow, Aron Nimzowitsch, Savielly Tartakower. Published in
Gross-Berliner Ost-Zeitung<\/em>, 2 September 1928<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/6.-Title-page-Kopfe-beruhmter-Schachmeister.jpg\")
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8 Uhr-Abendblatt<\/em>, 20 November 1926<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/5.-Title-page-Das-Schachmeister-Turnier.jpg\")
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