2 10 12 https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/files/original/ae0bb5283861872f211b482b4847ac74.jpg d19b5f410caa5c856766c5ebdf3c57b5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Abbey residents Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1946–1956 Type The nature or genre of the resource Person Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jane Eckett and Sheridan Palmer Person Abbey resident (and dates of residence if known) OR visitor to the resident OR satellite artist. Birth Date [day] [month] [year] 2 June 1899 Birthplace Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany Death Date [day] [month] [year] 19 June 1981 Place of death Full address is known; else city and country. Dettenhausen, Tübingen, Germany Occupation Be as precise as possible; follow DAAO standards if possible. eg. painter, potter, photographer (rather than simply artist) Pioneer film maker, film director, animator, puppeteer, book illustrator Biography Born Charlotte Eleonore Elisabeth Reiniger in Berlin in 1899. As a child she learned scherenschnitte, the art of cutting paper designs with scissors (Reiniger, 1936, p. 13; Sterritt, 2020, p. 399). Later she became deeply involved in the cultural and intellectual avant-garde world of pre-World War II Berlin, and her earliest films were made at the Institut für Kulturforschung (Institute for Cultural Research) in Berlin. Her friends included Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang and she worked with prominent young intellectuals such as Berthold Bartosch, a collaborator on many of her films during the 1920s, and Carl Koch, who had studied art history and philosophy and was involved in producing educational films and documentaries for the Institute (Guerin and Mebold, 2016). Koch was interested in the technical aspects of filmmaking and experimenting with animation and was a perfect collaborator with Reiniger. Reiniger and Koch were married in the Berlin-Schonberg registrar office on 6 December 1921 (Grace, 2017, chapter 2). Reiniger and Koch’s early films ranged from brief shorts to Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (The Adventures of Prince Achmed) (1923-6), which is widely claimed as the first full-length animated feature film and considered a milestone of cinema history. One of Reiniger’s most important innovations was the multiplane camera, which she called a tricktisch (trick table), explaining its use as follows: ‘Figures and backgrounds are laid out on a glass table. A strong light from underneath makes the wire hinges disappear and throws up the black figures in relief. The camera hangs above … looking down at the picture arranged below’ (Reiniger, 1936, p. 14). Reiniger wrote screenplays for her films and worked as a major contributor on several of Koch’s live action films, including wartime Italian productions of Tosca (1941, co-directed by Koch and Jean Renoir) and La Signora dell’Ovest (The Lady of the West) (1941-2) (Guerin and Mebold, 2016). Having studied traditional silhouette representation of the human figure, supplemented by her knowledge of ancient Eastern and Oriental performance traditions, Reiniger also designed costumes and sets for theatre and opera, staged puppet shows and shadow plays, illustrated books, newspapers, and magazines. She was an accomplished artist in ink and watercolor as well as a writer and a poet, and she gave public lectures on animation and experimental film history. Classical music was an important aspect of her films and she collaborated with composers Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau, Benjamin Britten and Peter Gellhorn (Guerin and Mebold, 2016). Although not Jewish, Reiniger and Koch had many Jewish friends and closely identified with leftist politics, making life in Germany under the Nazi regime difficult (Sterritt, 2020, p. 399). In November 1935 they left for England and over the next four years lived variously in London, Paris and Rome. In England Reiniger made short films for the GPO Film Unit. At the outbreak of war, in September 1939, Reiniger re-joined Koch in Rome, where he was working with Jean Renoir on Tosca. In September 1943, with the situation in Italy worsening, they were advised by the embassy to leave without delay, and moved from Rome to Venice, then back to Berlin, where Reiniger’s ill mother was living alone. In Berlin, Reiniger unexpectedly received a film commission, Die Goldene Gans (1944-7), which provided an income, but food and power shortages made living difficult. In September 1948 she and Koch visited Alexander Kardan (with whom they had earlier collaborated on Prinzen Achmed), staying with him in London until November, when Reiniger had to return to Berlin. Reiniger left Germany permanently on 31 January 1949, re-joining Koch in London where they lived for some months at 236 Latimer Court, Hammersmith, W6, before moving in late 1949 to Wilton Cottage, Kings Road, Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire (Happ, 2004, p. 67). In London they received further commissions from the GPO Film Unit (renamed after the war the Crown Film Unit, part of the Central Office of Information), making many advertising films for them such as Post Early for Christmas (1950). Other promotional films included The Dancing Fleece (also known as Wool Ballet), for the English Department of Labor, and Grain Harvest (1950) for the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1952 they established their own company Primrose Productions, with Viviana Milroy as producer and the financial backing of Louis Hagen Junior. Primrose Productions was primarily concerned with producing animated silhouette fairy tale films for children. Between 1953 and 1954 twelve such were produced and the 1950s would represent a highwater mark in Reiniger’s long career. These were made on a tricktisch that Hagen bought for Reiniger, and which was installed at the Abbey Art Centre, New Barnet, where Reiniger and Koch moved to in 1952. Whitney Grace writes that ‘Reiniger and Koch were welcomed at the Abbey Arts Centre, finding that being around fellow artists helped inspire their own work’ (Grace, 2017, chapter 7). Reiniger later told Alfred Happ that the Abbey Art Center residents ‘… live in their separate households, but close enough to inspire one another. The museum provided me with a number of artworks from different parts of the world, it’s not only ideas, but a widening creative atmosphere’ (Reiniger cited in Happ, 2004, p. 82). When William Ohly, the founder of the Abbey, died in 1955, Reiniger painted a <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1342#?c=0&m=">memorial window of St Francis of Assisi</a> for the Abbey tithe barn, where it remains to this day. Reiniger became a mentor to a younger Abbey resident, the English-born sculptor Peter King, whose experimental animated film, <a href="http://www.peterkingsculptor.org/PEKFilm.htm">13 Cantos of Hell (1955)</a>, was made using Reiniger’s shadow puppet techniques. Reiniger and Koch were also godparents to King’s first two children, Michael and Janet, born at the Abbey in 1953 and 1954 respectively. New Zealander Daryl Hill, who worked as assistant to Henry Moore during the mid-1950s alongside Lenton Parr and who was a probable visitor to the Abbey, became interested in film at this time through Reiniger and Koch, later citing their influence on his own experimental filmmaking in Australia in the 1960s (Laurie Thomas, ‘Those who are alone’ [interview with Daryl Hill], The Australian, 22 July 1967, p. 8). Given that Reiniger and Koch were two of the Abbey’s longest term residents—Koch lived there up until his death in 1963 while Reiniger remained until 1980—it is likely that other Abbey residents also came within their circle of influence. After Koch’s death, Reiniger retired from film making but continued lecturing at film festivals and workshops in Europe and Canada during the 1970s. Her tricktisch lay disassembled in parts in her room at the Abbey until early 1980, when the director of the Düsseldorf Stadtmuseum, Hartmut W. Redottėe, wrote to Reiniger and asked to purchase it for the museum. After agreeing on a price, he flew to England to oversee the table’s packaging and removal from the Abbey and while there, observing Reiniger’s sadness, spontaneously invited her to come to Düsseldorf and make a film on the table at the museum as part of an exhibition he was organising for that September. The result, Düsselchen und die vier Jahreszeiten (Düsselchen and the Four Seasons), would be her final film. Reiniger left the Abbey permanently that year, moving to Germany where she lived her final year with the Happ family at Dettanhausen, Tübingen. Sheridan Palmer Bibliography Lotte Reiniger, ‘Scissors Make Films’, Sight and Sound, vol. 5, no. 17, 1936, pp. 13–5. <a href="https://www.awn.com/animationworld/lotte-reiniger">William Moritz, ‘Lotte Reiniger’, Animation World Network, vol. 1, no. 3, 1 June 1996 </a>(accessed June 2021). <a href="https://www.stadtmuseum-tuebingen.de/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Lotte-Reiniger.pdf">Alfred Happ, Lotte Reiniger: 1899–1981 Schöpferin Einer Neuen Silhouettenkunst, Tübingen: Kulturamt, 2004</a>. <a href="https://wfpp.columbia.edu/pioneer/lotte-reiniger/">Frances Guerin and Anke Mebold, ‘Lotte Reiniger’, in Women Film Pioneers Project, Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta (eds), New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2016</a> (accessed June 2021). Whitney Grace, Lotte Reiniger: Pioneer of Film Animation, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2017. <a href="https://ff2media.com/blog/2020/09/09/lotte-reiniger-was-a-talented-and-inventive-pioneer-in-animation">Nicole Ackman, ‘Lotte Reiniger Was a Talented and Inventive Pioneer in Animation’, FF2 Media, 9 September 2020</a> (accessed June 2021). David Sterritt, ‘The Animated Adventures of Lotte Reiniger’, in Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 37, no. 4, 2020, pp. 398–401. Photograph (i) Who owns the copyright of the photograph (as opposed to the artwork)? Do not use the © symbol here. Just state the name of the photo credit. e.g. Leonard Joel, Melbourne PLUS we need to credit the owner of the photo if the photo is in private ownership or part of an institutional repository. If part of an institutional collection, need to also include any identifiers (accession numbers etc). e.g. Mark Strizic, courtesy Marcus Zikaras e.g. Mark Strizic, courtesy State Library Victoria, H2008.142/4 No full stop at end. Lotte Reiniger working at a table outdoors in the garden of the Abbey Art Centre, c. 1952-63, courtesy Lotte Reiniger Estate Collection, Stadtmuseum Tübingen, Germany Date modified Date record modified: [day] [month] [year] 15 January 2026 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 131.000 Title A name given to the resource Lotte Reiniger (1899–1982) Type The nature or genre of the resource person Subject The topic of the resource Reiniger, Lotte, 1899–1982. Koch, Carl, 1892–1963. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sheridan Palmer Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/997">Carl Koch (1892–1963)</a> Abbey Art Centre animation animators Carl Koch Daryl Hill émigré artists fairy tales film German artists in England Jean Renoir Lotte Reiniger Louis Hagen Jr Peter King Primrose Productions shadow puppets Viviana Milroy William Ohly https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/files/original/e94ae83a0c163cddff4cad0f36c5282b.jpg 95e5246066d7465c98ce0efec09955c8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Abbey residents Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1946–1956 Type The nature or genre of the resource Person Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jane Eckett and Sheridan Palmer Person Abbey resident (and dates of residence if known) OR visitor to the resident OR satellite artist. Birth Date [day] [month] [year] 31 August 1883 Birthplace Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, UK Death Date [day] [month] [year] 22 July 1955 Place of death Full address is known; else city and country. London, UK Occupation Be as precise as possible; follow DAAO standards if possible. eg. painter, potter, photographer (rather than simply artist) Sculptor, ethnographic art collector, and owner of the Berkeley Galleries and Abbey Art Centre and Museum. Date submitted Date object first catalogued: [day] [month] [year] 8 August 2020 Date modified Date record modified: [day] [month] [year] 3 January 2026 Photograph (i) Who owns the copyright of the photograph (as opposed to the artwork)? Do not use the © symbol here. Just state the name of the photo credit. e.g. Leonard Joel, Melbourne PLUS we need to credit the owner of the photo if the photo is in private ownership or part of an institutional repository. If part of an institutional collection, need to also include any identifiers (accession numbers etc). e.g. Mark Strizic, courtesy Marcus Zikaras e.g. Mark Strizic, courtesy State Library Victoria, H2008.142/4 No full stop at end. William Ohly at the Abbey Art Centre, c. 1950. Photo: Picture Post. Reproduced: Memorial Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by William Ohly, London: Berkeley Galleries, 1955. Biography A British born ethnographic art collector and gallery owner, whose Berkeley Galleries and Abbey Art Centre and Museum were important features of the mid-20th century London art scene. William Ferdinand Charles Ohly was born in Kingston upon Hull, East Yorkshire, the youngest of four children born to <a href="https://gw.geneanet.org/bkaston?n=ohly&oc=&p=carl+engelbert+victor">Carl Englebert Viktor Ohlÿ</a> (1847–1900) and <a href="https://gw.geneanet.org/bkaston?lang=en&p=louise+pauline&n=strauss">Pauline Luise Ohlÿ (née Strauss)</a> (1847–1916). His mother was Jewish, from the well-known Strauss/Straus family of Otterberg in the Rhineland-Palatinate of Germany; her second cousin is believed to have been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidor_Straus">Isidor Straus</a>, co-owner of Macy's department store in New York, who died on the Titanic (information re the Srauss/Straus family courtesy Joachim Specht, Grünstadt, 9 Nov. 2023). In 1897, at age fourteen, Ohly moved with his family to Frankfurt am Main where, reputedly on the advice of sculptor Alfred Gilbert, he and his older brother Ernst (later Ernst, born 18 March 1877 in Milan, Italy) attended the famous Städelschule für Bildende Künste. In August 1903 William created his earliest recorded work: a memorial plaque in marble honouring the late Kaiserin Friedrich—eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, wife of Kaiser Frederich III and mother of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II—for the English Church in Bad Homburg, while at the same time, the nineteen-year old Ohly presented the church in Bad Homburg a set of reliefs of four Evangelists (Badischer Presse, 18 August 1903, cited in Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, '<a href="https://www.facebook.com/100054380026627/videos/pcb.1069766581512666/1053248479406167">Gratwanderung mit St. Georg – Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Bildhauers Ohly</a>', Die Rheinpfalz, Wochenendbeilage, no. 215, 14 Sept 2024). William was subsequently apprenticed to the German sculptor Hugo Lederer in Berlin, circa 1904. He had a studio around this time near Berlin's Tiergarten at Siegmunds Hof 11, where he befriended fellow residents Gordon Craig and Isadora Duncan. In Berlin, on 7 January 1908, he married London-born Florence Annie Kurtzhals née Lloyd (born 23 May 1878, daughter of James Lloyd, mechanical draftsman, and Emma Ann Lloyd; elsewhere Florence's surname is given as Loyd). In the early years of his marriage, he seems to have been a member of the <a href="https://www.artist-info.com/users/artsitpublicpagewithoutportfoilo/325759">Deutschen Künstlerbundes Darmstadt (German Artists' Association Darmstadt), exhibiting one work with them in 1910</a>. With his brother Ernest, Ohly worked as an architectural sculptor in Germany — at first in Cologne and later in the Rhineland-Palatinate, until Ernest's death in 1916. Extant examples of their joint work include a large fountain topped with cornucopia and a vase set within an <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1304">octagonal limestone pool for Frankfurt’s main cemetery</a>, c. 1910, and four groups of putti for the<a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1307"> façade of the art nouveau headquarters of the Frankfurter General-Anzeiger</a> newspaper at Schillerstraße 19-25 (architects Adam Heinrich Assmann and Ludwig Bernoully, 1912). Two carved figures and decorative reliefs of putti and animals for the main entrance of the <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1305">Helmholtzschule gymnasium</a> at Habsburgerallee 57-59, Frankfurt (c. 1908-13), were destroyed during the first major British-American air attack on <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Helmholtzschule_frankfurt_hesse_germany.png">4 October 1943</a> (1912; these are just visible in <a href="https://www.frankfurt1933-1945.de/uploads/tx_frankfurt3345/hm_lkhelmholtz1.jpg">this archival photograph</a>, c. 1939; the damage to the building is visible in <a href="https://www.frankfurt1933-1945.de/uploads/tx_frankfurt3345/hm_lkhelmholtz2.jpg">this photograph</a>, taken 4 October 1943). The Ohly name is not currently attached to any of these works yet their authorship is documented in a profile of the brothers in Moderne Bauformen in 1913. Other architectural sculptures of this period include two carved supraportals for the <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1306">hospital in Elberfeld (c. 1908-13)</a>. One depicts a naked infant boy, or putti, holding a bird, set within a shell-like grotto surrounded by furled vegetable elements. The other depicts a young child wearing only a fluted cape, which streams behind him, as he sits astride a leaping billy goat, holding the animal by the horns. Below are some curling fronds of vegetation and a small lizard-like creature. Both supraportes are set within shallow recessed demi-lunes over external doorways flanked by carved classical columns. Ohly also supplied architectural relief sculptures for the <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1309">District Hall, Düren (1912)</a> and <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1308">Victoriaschule, Essen (1912–13)</a>, including an owl, symbolic of wisdom, and a pair of seahorses. His best-known pre-WW1 work was the <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1298">Gänsereiterbrunnen (Goose rider fountain)</a> for the public square behind the Apostles Church in Essen (1913), designed in conjunction with the Hagen architect Ewald Wachenfeld in a late Art Nouveau style. The fountain originally had a central bronze element by Ohly: a sculpture of a rider reaching for a goose (the practice of goose riding having been practiced in Frohnhausen until the end of the nineteenth century), which was lost during WW2 when the fountain was buried under rubble. During WW1 Ohly served with a trench mortar batallion, 1915-1919. At the time of enlistment his address was Eschersheimer Landstraße 152, Frankfurt, and he was recorded as being married to Florence Loyd [sic] with no children. His brother Ernest served in the Reserve Infantry Regiment 208 and died at the Battle of the Somme, France, 14 October 1916 (with thanks to Joachim Specht, historian, Grünstadt, for information on William Ohly's brother). William and Florence divorced in Munich, 6 June 1919 (again thanks to Joachim Specht, Grünstadt, for sharing genealogical records). Ohly remarried in the same year: this time to Gertrud Scharvogel (1888-1951). Gertrud was the daughter of renowned ceramicist, manufacturer and lecturer Professor Jakob Julius Scharvogel, who had been director of the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG166244">Grossherzogliche Keramische Manufaktur </a>(Grand Ducal Ceramic Manufactury) in Darmstadt, 1906-13, and a founding member of the Deutsche Werkbund in 1907. Scharvogel’s Jugendstil or art nouveau style ‘Scharvogel stoneware’, with its distinct Japanese influences, is represented in many major collections including the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. William and Gertrud had two sons: Ernst (later Ernest) Jacob Felix Ohly (1920-2008), who would later take over management of the Berkeley Galleries after William Ohly’s death, and a child who died in infancy in 1925. Throughout the 1920s Ohly executed several church commissions and war memorials in Germany. In October 1920 his designs for a series of Stations of the Cross for Frankfurt Cathedral's cloister were unveiled; a photograph of one such, <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/622">The Crucifixion</a>, is housed among the Kineton Parkes collection in the V&A, London; the stations' unveiling was reported in the Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt (cited in Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, '<a href="https://www.facebook.com/100054380026627/videos/pcb.1069766581512666/1053248479406167">Gratwanderung mit St. Georg – Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Bildhauers Ohly</a>', Die Rheinpfalz, Wochenendbeilage, no. 215, 14 Sept 2024). Other known memorials include a larger-than-life-size figure group featuring a female allegorical figure shielding six fallen soldiers with her cloak, designed with architect Johannes Reuter for <a href="https://global.museum-digital.org/object/2543">Bitterfelder Binnengärtenpark</a> (Bitterfeld Inner Garden Park, 1926) and featuring the names of 516 war dead (demolished in 1969 to make way for a new East German department store); a <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1294">Plaque for the fallen for St. Martin's Church, Grünstadt</a> (1927), with its figure of Christ sporting distinctly Jewish sidelocks; and a <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1295">memorial relief for the Hall of Honour for those who fell in the First World War (1933) in Forst an der Weinstrasse</a> showing the risen Christ between two resurrected soldiers dressed in contemporary military uniforms, carved in sandstone relief. The Forst relief shares features in common with a series of <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1297">decorative relief carvings for the main portal of the Ludwigshafen-Friesenheim cemetery chapel</a> (c. 1926–7) as well as a bronze <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1296">St Francis fountain</a> (1927), for the same cemetry gardens, which is today one of Ohly's best-known works thanks to the bronze <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/1303">St Francis maquette</a> that Ohly took with him to London and which featured in the 1955 memorial catalogue. As Katherine Quinlan-Flatter stresses, most of Ohly's war memorials in the Pfalz eschewed symbols of victory—appropriately, given Germany's defeat—with many instead employing the figure of St George slaying the dragon. The double symbolism—St George being associated with both Britain and Germany—was likely of significance to Ohly with his divided loyalties. This is seen, for instance, in the <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter_Friedhof_%28Waldfischbach%29">old Waldfischbach cemetry war memorial</a>, designed by architect Paul Klostermann and executed by Ohly, showing a heroic bare-chested St George standing over the dragon, his cloak billowing behind him like a scalloped shell, a small shield held aloft in his left hand, as well as in a mounted St George slaying the dragon <a href="http://www.denkmalprojekt.org/2020/mussbach_neustadt-a-d-weinstrasse_wk1_rp.html">war memorial for Neustadt-Mußbach</a> (1929) designed by architects Willy Schönwetter and Otto Schaltenbrand from Neustadt/Haardt. St George also features in Ohly's best known war memorial: the copper-gilded bronze <a href="https://ukniwm.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/apologising-for-a-war-memorial/">St. Georgs-Brunnen</a> (St George's fountain) (1930) at Speyer, designed by architect Karl Latteyer, depicting St George standing over the hapless dragon atop an obelisk set within a fluted metal bowl that sits within a larger stone basin, which carries several reliefs by Ohly and a series of inscriptions from the German national anthem. With the advent of National Socialism, Ohly found it increasingly difficult to practice as a sculptor. His British birth enabled him to move to England at some point between 1933 and 1935 (sources differ as to the date). Ernest was sent to a progressive school in Geneva, the École d’Humanité, run by Paul Gaheeb and his wife, Edith née Cassirer (cousin of art dealers and publishers Paul and Bruno Cassirer), and remained there for the war, and his mother Gertrude found work there too as school matron (see Ines Schlenker, Milein Cosman: Capturing Time, Prestel, 2019, 16–19). Those of Gertrude's family who remained in Munich, including her mother Sophia Scharvogel (nee Vohsen), perished in concentration camps in Terezin and Gurz (see the Ohly family correspondence, 1941-1947, The Wiener Holocaust Library, London, WL 1136; see also <a href="https://gedenkbuch.muenchen.de/index.php?id=personenliste&tx_mucstadtarchiv_stadtarchivkey%5Bopferid%5D=9830&tx_mucstadtarchiv_stadtarchivkey%5Baction%5D=showopfer&tx_mucstadtarchiv_stadtarchivkey%5Bcontroller%5D=Archiv&cHash=06eace674a57d90cb342d50afa3231e9">Munich Gendenkbuch Personeliste entry for Sophia Scharvogel</a>), while one of her sisters, known to William Ohly's children as 'Tante Bob', survived and emigrated to New York (email communication from F. Lettman to S. Palmer, 1 November 2021). Ohly joined James Fitton's evening class in lithography at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in Southampton Row, around 1933. Fellow members of the class included the Communists Pearl 'Polly' Binder (later Lady Elwyn-Jones, 1904–1990), New Zealander <a href="http://www.jboswell.org.uk/index.php">James Boswell</a> (1906–1971), folk singer-journalist-artist Albert Lancaster Lloyd (then recently returned from a stint on an Australian sheep station; 1908–1982), as well as James Holland (1905–1996) and renowned illustrator Edward Ardizzone RA (1900-1979). 'The stimulating political discussions and the general cameraderie were as an important part of the proceedings as the classes' (Dave Arthur, Bert: The Life and Times of A. L. Lloyd, London: Pluto Press, 2012, p. 46). With this group, Ohly helped established the Marxist agit-prop Artists' International Association (AIA; see Arthur, op. cit., pp. 47-8, 111). While only a small handful were card-carrying Communists, they were all determinedly anti-fascist and pro-working-class. Many of the group produced lithographs of London's urban poor around this time, Ohly included. The move to England marked the end of his marriage to Gertrud. Ohly had met in Germany a young sculpture student, Charlotte Maria Adam (1913–2005), known as 'Lottie' or 'Lotchen', who was part of the underground anti-fascist resistance. She followed Ohly to England and they married in Chelsea, 23 October 1935, setting up home at 8a Netherton Court, Chelsea (London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; 1935 Electoral Register). Both were very active in London's émigré support network. By 1936 they were living at 141 Maida Vale, London W9, remaining there until 1939 when they appear in the England and Wales Register as living at 11 Sydney Close, Kensington – also known as 11 Avenue Studios, Sydney Close. Ohly is recorded as ‘artist and painter’ while Charlotte is listed as a dressmaker. Charlotte was by then using her understanding of the figure from her sculptural training, as well as her 'impeccable taste', to work as a seamstress in the high-end dress shop, Robell in Baker Street, run by Sigmund Freud's daughter Mathilde Hollitscher and elegantly fitted out by Mathilde's brother Ernst Ludwig Freud (father of Lucian Freud; see Arthur, op. cit., p. 112). Ohly exhibited at the Royal Academy (RA) in 1935, showing the bronze statuette of <a href="https://chronicle250.com/1935#catalogue=william+f.+c.+ohly">St Francis of Assisi (catalogue no. 1717</a>). He showed there again over the following two years: a statuette titled <a href="https://chronicle250.com/1936#catalogue=william+f.+c.+ohly">Speed (catalogue no. 1524)</a> in 1936 and an untitled <a href="https://chronicle250.com/1937#catalogue=william+f.+c.+ohly">bronze statuette (catalogue no. 1488)</a> in 1937. In December 1939 Ohly held his first one-man exhibition in his studio-home at Kensington, titled Impressions of London: Dockland, East End, West End; watercolours and drawings. Ohly’s interest in everyday people and subjects and his sympathy for the poorer migrant communities in these areas are evident in his works of the late 1930s. These attracted some interest and were included in various group exhibitions such as the one organised by the British Institute for Adult Education on behalf of CEMA (Council for Encouragement of Music and Art) that toured Northumberland venues such as the Miners’ Welfare Institute in Ashington in early 1943. In London Ohy established himself too as an art dealer, mainly in so-called African 'tribal art', Chinese antiquities and medieval sculpture and paintings. In 1941 he established the Berkeley Galleries in Davies Street, off Berkeley Square, London. As a highly respected dealer in ancient and ethnographic objects, both African and Oceanic, Ohly also exhibited modern works of art, including work by Frances Hodgkins, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, Oscar Kokoschka, Jack B. Yeats, Henry Moore, Fred Uhlman, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper’s modernist ceramics, as well as presenting group exhibitions showing works by some of the Abbey artists. The Berkeley Galleries became something of a social centre during the war years, when Ohly, who was of 'a philanthropic nature', 'organised social events with musical recitals, tea and buns at his gallery, as a distraction from the bleakness and blackouts of wartime London' (Arthur, op. cit., pp. 111-2). The 'Critic' for The New Statesman and Nation later recalled Ohly's hospitality one "noisy night—I think it must have been in the fly-bomb period—when we ate jugged hare (he was very proud of his jugging) in a basement of the Berkeley Galleries hung with strings of onion, and crowded with boxes of priceless Chinese art" (Critic [possibly Kingsley Martin], “London Diary,” New Statesman and Nation 50, no. 1280, 17 September 1955, 318). Ohly's marriage with Charlotte broke down in the later years of the war. Through the film director Uri Weiss, Charlotte had met Bert Lloyd (Ohly's friend from the Central School lithography class) and by 1945 their affair was an open secret. After Lloyd's wife's suicide in December 1945, he married Charlotte Ohly in early 1946, though William Ohly remained friendly with both (Arthur, op. cit., p. 111). It is likely through Bert Lloyd, who was then a regular contributor to Picture Post, that the series of Abbey Art Centre photographs reproduced in Bernard Smith's autobiography came to be taken. In 1946, Ohly purchased a three-acre property at 89 Park Road, New Barnet from Father J. S.M. Ward, a collector of ethnographic and religious objects. In 1934 Father Ward established a ‘utopian’ religious order, the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Antioch, based on religious teachings descended from a church founded before the Greek Orthodox Church. The main house at the Abbey was one of the first private houses constructed of concrete in 1870, while a reassembled fourteenth-century tithe barn from Birchington near Margate, Kent, was used as a chapel. Ward also created a museum and folk park, with some thirty salvaged buildings including a Congo Hut, a Dinka hut, a Chinese Temple and other exotic attractions. Both Ohly and Ward had a passion for collecting glass, porcelain, and medieval works of art, and often met at auctions. The clock tower building contained three flats, and an old school building and numerous outhouses formed thirteen studios. Other rooms in the main house were also rented to residents including the pioneer animator Lotte Reiniger and her husband the German film producer Carl Koch; James Gleeson in 1947-8; Robert Klippel 1947-9 and Mary Webb 1947-49; the Australian art historian Bernard Smith and his family in 1949-50 and Sali Herman, 1953. Ohly’s intention from the outset was to turn the Abbey into a not-for-profit artist’s colony. Other resident artists included the Berliner Inge Winter (née Neufeld), who married the Australian artist Graham King at the Abbey; Noel Counihan and his family, the Scottish painter Alan Davie and his wife Billie; Peter King and Angela Varga. The scholar of Chinese and South East Asian history, Maurice Collis, remarked that the Abbey ‘was in no sense an institution, but undoubtedly provided extraordinary inspiration for the artists who lived and work there’. In March 1950, four years after purchasing the Abbey, Ohly established the Abbey Art Museum in the old tithe barn, which was open to the public on Saturdays. He nominated Cottie Burland, an assistant in the Ethnographic Department at the British Museum, as the museum’s honorary curator. In 1953 Ohly’s son Ernest married Mary Ashthorpe and the pair settled at the Abbey. Their two children, Francesca (born 1955), and Martin J. Ohly (born 1957), were both born at the Abbey. Ernest and his young family moved out from the Abbey after the birth of Martin, moving to South London. Meanwhile, also in 1953, Ohly married his housekeeper, Käthe H. Davidson (née Bodey, 1905-1998), known as Kate, who cooked communal meals for many of the resident artists. Kate arrived at the Abbey in late 1947, having been referred through Ohly's former wife, Charlotte and her second husband Bert Lloyd. Kate had worked for the Lloyds minding their young daughter Caroline, who remembered regular visits and holidays spent at the Abbey, where she and her older half-brother Joseph were allowed to 'dress up in grass skirts and other exciting costumes' (Arthur, op. cit., p. 112). Like Charlotte, Kate was a communist with links to Berlin’s radical left. She had escaped Berlin in 1938/39 through the Red Cross and had an arranged marriage in Switzerland to the News Chronical journalist Michael Davidson in order to obtain a British visa (email from Bienchen Ohly to Sheridan Palmer, 2 September 2021). In London she met up with Hans Otto Alfred Schwalm, otherwise known by his pen-name Jan Petersen, author of Our Street: A Chronicle Written in the Heart of Fascist Germany (Gollancz, 1938) with whom she had a child, Bienchen, in 1942. Ohly formally adopted Bienchen (then known as Barbara) at the time of his marriage to Kate. Bienchen and her sons still live at the Abbey and it continues to function as an artists’ centre. Sheridan Palmer and Jane Eckett October 2020 (updated April 2025) Bibliography Marriage certificate for William F. C. Ohly and Florence Annie Kurtzhals, Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Heiratsregister; Laufendenummer: 469, certificate no. 15. Ancestry.com. Berlin, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1936 [database on-line]. Julius Hülsen, ‘<a href="https://bildsuche.digitale-sammlungen.de/index.html?c=viewer&bandnummer=bsb00087545&pimage=325&v=100&nav=&l=de">Bildhauerarbeiten der Brüder Ernest und Wilhelm Ohly</a>’, Dekorative Kunst, 1912, pp. 271–73. 'Bildhauer Ernst und William Ohly, Frankfurt a.M. u. Köln a.Rh. - Verschiedene Architektur-Plastiken', Moderne Bauformen: Monatshefte für Architektur und Raumkunst, vol. XII, no. 6, June 1913, pp. 296-300. Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; München; Abteilung IV Kriegsarchiv. Kriegstammrollen, 1914-1918; Volume: 17059. Kriegsstammrolle: Bd. 1, Ancestry.com. Bavaria, Germany, World War I Personnel Rosters, 1914-1918 [database on-line]. William F C Ohly in the 1939 England and Wales Register, 29 September 1939, The National Archives; Kew, London, England; 1939 Register; Reference: RG 101/308I, Ancestry.com. 1939 England and Wales Register [database on-line]. Impressions of London: Dockland, East End, West End; watercolours and drawings by William F. C. Ohly, 11 Avenue Studios, Sydney Close, 76 Fulham Road, S.W.3, 10 December [1939], <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/544">https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/544</a>. Electoral register record for 89 Park Road, Barnet East, London, 20 November 1949, London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Electoral Registers, ref. no. MR/PER/C/1275, Ancestry.com. London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965 [database on-line]. Berkeley Galleries, London, Exhibition of Work by Artists of the Abbey Art Centre, New Barnet, Herts., Berkeley Galleries, Mayfair, 2 December 1952 to 3 January 1953, <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/545">https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/545</a>. C. A. Burland, Memorial Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture by William Ohly, London: Berkeley Galleries, 21 September – 3 October 1955, <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/503">https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/items/show/503</a>. ‘Scenes of a vanished East End: William Ohly’s pictures', The Times, London, 21 September 1955, p. 3, <a href="https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/admin/items/show/542">https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/abbey-art-centre/admin/items/show/542</a>. Hermione Waterfield, ‘William Ohly 31 August 1883 - 22 July 1955' in H. Waterfield and J. C. H. King, Provenance: Twelve Collectors of Ethnographic Art in England, 1760–1990, London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2009, pp. 104-109. François de Ricqlès Lionel Gosset, Art Africain et Océanien Collection William Ohly, exh. cat., Paris: Christies, 3 December 2011. Francesca Letterman interviewed by Sheridan Palmer, London, 2013. ‘Name: Scharvogel, Johann Julius’, V&A collections search, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, URL: <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/name/scharvogel-johann-julius/A20416/">http://collections.vam.ac.uk/name/scharvogel-johann-julius/A20416/</a> (accessed 22.9.2020). ‘Jakob Julius Scharvogel’, biographic entry stub, British Museum, London, URL: <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG166242">https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG166242</a> (accessed 22 September 2020). Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, ‘JSM Ward and the History of the Abbey Museum’, URL: <a href="https://abbeymuseum.com.au/history/">https://abbeymuseum.com.au/history/</a> (accessed 20 June 2020). <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ohly#">German Wikipedia entry for William Ohly</a>. Email correspondence from Bienchen Ohly to Sheridan Palmer, 13 August 2020. Email correspondence from Joachim Specht to Sheridan Palmer and Jane Eckett, November – December 2023. Katherine Quinlan-Flatter, '<a href="https://www.facebook.com/100054380026627/videos/pcb.1069766581512666/1053248479406167">Gratwanderung mit St. Georg – Die unglaubliche Geschichte des Bildhauers Ohly</a>', Die Rheinpfalz, Wochenendbeilage, no. 215, 14 Sept 2024. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Ferdinand Charles Ohly (1883-1955) Subject The topic of the resource Ohly, William, 1883-1955 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 130.0000 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sheridan Palmer and Jane Eckett Type The nature or genre of the resource person