Hans Felix Kraus (Vienna 1916 - 1973 Guadalajara) - Donation of works to the Collection and Archive
The rediscovery of an exiled artist
In memory of Hans Felix Kraus, who studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (now the Angewandte) from 1930 to 1935, Helen Kraus donated works by her father to the Collection and Archive. The artist was already prominently represented in exhibitions during his studies and also worked successfully as an illustrator, art critic and curator. However, his career came to an abrupt end with the “Anschluss” of Austria in March 1938. He fled via detours to New York, where he continued to work as a graphic artist and publisher. On 2 September 2024, in the presence of Rector Petra Schaper Rinkel, Helen Kraus donated numerous woodcuts, lithographs, collages and books designed by Kraus, which - with a few exceptions - he had created in Vienna before his escape.
But who was the now completely unknown Hans Felix Kraus, and how did the donation come about? The story goes back more than ten years and began with an email to the rector at the time, Gerald Bast, and subsequently to the Collection and Archive of the Angewandte:
“My father, Hans Felix Kraus, graduated from the Kunstgewerbeschule in June 1935. [...] With the Anschluss, my father made his way to Lisbon and then to New York City. He lived mostly in New York, dying in Mexico in 1973. My father's work shows the influences of his training as an artist at the Kunstgewerbeschule and his immersion in the artistic ideas surrounding him. Throughout his life, my father continued to produce book illustrations, paintings, books, articles, and art objects.” Helen Kraus wrote these lines to the Angewandte in April 2013. A month later, she had traveled from Boston to Vienna to follow in her father's footsteps. However, the results of her research in the Angewandte's Collection and Archive were meagre: in addition to the study documents, there were just two small-format but remarkable woodcuts: a formally reduced, very humorous Tavern brawl (Wirtshausschlägerei) (1933) and the invitation to his own exhibition at the Vienna Secession (1934). Questions came from both sides: Where could we do more research? And vice versa: What else did the artist do? Further works in the family collection from 1934 suddenly made it clear: Hans Felix Kraus is worth rediscovering!
Exactly ten years later, in May 2023, a small exhibition of works was put on display as part of a remarkable remembrance initiative, “Sonderfall” Angewandte. Spotlight (curator: Bernadette Reinhold). Kraus’s descendents traveled all the way from the USA for this unique event. On display were his illustrations of Alphonse Daudet's novel Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) from 1934, which were shown at the Secession in the year they were created - the 18-year-old Kraus was still a student at the Kunstgewerbeschule at the time. They reveal a unique, comically imaginative imagery and a sophisticated figurative abstraction. Against a backdrop of the elimination of the Parliament in 1933, the bloody February Uprising in 1934 and the leadership cult surrounding the Austro-fascist chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß, it was no coincidence that the culturally and politically active artist devoted himself to the tragicomic lion hunter and braggart Tartarin, at the same time providing the illustrations for the Baron Munchausen’s tall tales. The Tartarin cycle was exhibited again for the first time in almost 90 years: it was to be Hans Felix Kraus's first ever exhibition after his escape from Vienna in 1938/39, but unfortunately only posthumously.
Bilder

Helen Kraus at the Angewandte’s Collection and Archive, September 2, 2024: Cosima Rainer, Bernadette Reinhold, Helen Kraus, Sophie Geretsegger
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien

Helen Kraus at the Angewandte’s Collection and Archive, September 2, 2024: Petra Schaper Rinkel, Cosima Rainer, Helen Kraus
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Foto: Bernadette Reinhold

Helen Kraus at the Angewandte’s Collection and Archive, September 2, 2024: Petra Schaper Rinkel und Helen Kraus
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Foto: Bernadette Reinhold

Helen Kraus at the Angewandte’s Collection and Archive, September 2, 2024: Petra Schaper Rinkel und Helen Kraus
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Foto: Bernadette Reinhold

Hans Felix Kraus, Tavern Brawl (Wirthauschlägerei), 1933, linocut, IN 14.052/1
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, IN 14.052/1, © HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, Invitation for the Autumn exhibition at the Secession Vienna, 1934, woodcut, IN 14.952/2
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, IN 14.952/2, © HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, before 1938, photo in family property

Showcase: Exhibition Hans Felix Kraus – “Sonderfall” Angewandte. Spotlight – a remembrance initiative, Showcase Collection and Archive #7.2, May – June 2023, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, Vienna 3
Helen Kraus, Bernadette Reinhold, Rektor Gerald Bast
Foto: Lisa Brandl

Showcase: Exhibition Hans Felix Kraus – “Sonderfall” Angewandte. Spotlight – a remembrance initiative, Showcase Collection and Archive #7.2, May – June 2023, Vordere Zollamtsstraße 7, Vienna 3
Photo: Manuel Carreon Lopez, kunst-dokumentation.com

Hans Felix Kraus, Singing Muezzin in Minares in Algier, illustration for Alphonse Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon, 1933/34, watercolor on paper, Jewish Museum New York
© HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, Tartarin and the tame lion, illustration for Alphonse Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon, 1933/34, watercolor on paper, Jewish Museum New York
© HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, The Dancer Gertrud Kraus, lithograph, from the series of the same name, Kunstverlag Würthle & Sohn Nachfolge, Vienna 1938, IN 19623/3
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, IN 19623/3, © HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, illustration for Das Lied der Erde, woodcut, 1934, IN 19.625
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, IN 19.625, © HFK: Helen Kraus

Hans Felix Kraus, illustration of the fairy tale The Fisherman and His Wife, woodcut, 1934, IN 19.628/1
Kunstsammlung und Archiv, Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, IN 19.628/1, © HFK: Helen Kraus
Hans Felix Kraus began studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule with Franz Čižek, Bertold Löffler and Wilhelm Müller-Hoffmann in 1930 at the age of 14 and was one of the most talented students. His works were soon exhibited several times at the Secession (1934), the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (today: MAK Vienna), and in several advanced Viennese galleries, as well as in Rome and at the World Exhibition in Brussels (1935). He also worked as a curator (for example of a show on Japanese children's drawings at Galerie Würthle Vienna), as an highly engaged art critic for German and Dutch magazines, among others, and was active in the internationally oriented Österreichische Kulturbund (Austrian Cultural Association). The young artist was very well connected: he repeatedly worked as an illustrator for the Büchergilde Gutenberg, which was part of the (German) Workers movement. He also had contacts with the local dance scene, as demonstrated by a series of lithographs of Gertrud Kraus published in 1938. Alongside Grete Wiesenthal and Gertrud Bodenstein, she was one of the reformers of free dance in Vienna and emigrated to Palestine in 1934 for political reasons. H. F. Kraus was extensively educated in literature and art history, showing a great affinity for Middle Eastern and Asian art both as an artist and as an author. His meticulous woodcuts for the cycle Das Lied der Erde (The Song of the Earth) and the fairy tale The Fisherman and His Wife prove to be a microcosm in miniature.
The “Anschluss” of Austria to Nazi Germany in March 1938 put an end to the 22-year-old's career in one fell swoop. After an arduous escape to Portugal via Italy, France and Spain, he boarded a ship in Lisbon in March 1939 with his mother Elsa Scheibner (1886-1972), who had probably worked as a journalist in Vienna, bound for Southampton. From there, they left for New York a few days later. Many years later, he told his daughter Helen about his narrow escape by train in Italy: “I was talking to a young man in my compartment on the train. We were talking about politics. All of a sudden, I realized he had some sort of Mussolini label on his clothing. 'Now, I'm sunk,' he thought. [But] nothing happened.” 1
In New York, he continued to work as an artist, author and publisher, working for La Voix de France, the newspaper of the worldwide movement against the Vichy regime, among others, which may indicate contacts he made during his escape. He was also close friends with Alexander Archipenko and many artists and intellectuals in Central and South America, and he eventually moved with his wife to Mexico, where he died at the age of 57.
Kraus is completely unknown today, even in specialist circles – the sting of oblivion runs deep.
The aforementioned exhibition (May - June 2023), the publication “Sonderfall” Angewandte. The University of Applied Arts Vienna under Austrofascism, National Socialism and in the Post-War Period and, last but not least, the visualization of Helen Kraus’s generous donation are an attempt to bring the largely forgotten artist back into the collective memory and make him heard as a critical voice of Austrian modernism.
[by: Bernadette Reinhold]
- ^ Helen Kraus to Bernadette Reinhold, E-Mail February 21st, 2023
news_section_links
- Schaukasten: „Sonderfall“ Angewandte. Im Fokus – Eine Gedenkinitiative / Hans Felix Kraus, Tartarin de Tarascon, 1933/34
- Literaturempfehlung: „Sonderfall“ Angewandte. Die Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien im Austrofaschismus, Nationalsozialismus und in der Nachkriegszeit
- Zum Projekt: „Sonderfall“ Angewandte. Die Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien im Austrofaschismus, Nationalsozialismus und in der Nachkriegszeit
- Works by Hans Felix Kraus - Link to our online database