Richard Ziegler

Richard Ziegler – Study period in England; philology studies

Richard Ziegler was born on 3rd May 1891 in Pforzheim, the second son of a schoolteacher; his elder brother Georg died at the age of 10. He learnt the values of patience with hand craftwork and nature from his grandfathers, who worked as a coppersmith and flax weaver. After graduating from Pforzheim Reuchlin Grammar School, he went to England for a year and attended the Shakespeare Grammar School and perfected his English – a quality which would prove particularly useful when he later emigrated out of National Socialist Germany. A career in art initially did not come into question, and Ziegler instead studied philology in Heidelberg, Geneva and Greifswald. Only once he had successfully graduated – having primarily examined the Old and Middle High German world of thought – did he receive permission from his family to turn to the visual arts and he created a series of engravings on the mystical work Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (The Flowing Light of Divinity) by Mechthild of Magdeburg. 

Fist successes as an artist; trip to Italy

His rapid first successes in the 1920s brought Richard Ziegler the coveted entry into the art scene and an abundance of impulses, whilst support from his admirer, cousin and lifelong great friend Erwin Weber enabled several trips to Italy, the most desired of locations for German artists. Having been totally self-taught, Ziegler finally found his own style, which numerous drawings and pastels lay testimony to. From 1925, he loved as a freelance artist in Berlin, produced oil paintings, woodcuts and book illustrations, and that same year - mediated by the Romanian impressionist Arthur Segal - took part in the exhibitions of the November Group and also married the painter Mathilde Rosenthal, who was related to the German Jewish artist Max Liebermann. The marriage, however, only lasted until 1928. Ziegler moved ever closer to New Objectivity; people living in the city were a dominant motif at this time and whilst his pictures were rarely political, he was more interested in depicting women. When a planned exhibition at the Berlin Kunstbibliothek was unable to take place due to the dismissal of the Jewish director Curt Glaser, Ziegler quickly left for Yugoslavia with his Jewish fiancé Edith Lendt.

Fierce protest against national Socialism

Richard Ziegler made no secret of his aversion to the brown power in his homeland, and created biting caricature drawings whilst in exile and published three antifascist drawing portfolios. In 1937, he went to England where he was interned as an ‘enemy alien’. After his release, Ziegler drew and painted with unbroken determination against National Socialism – although he would much rather have concentrated on motifs from antique mythology and powerful female figures of the bible. So as not to put his family in Germany in danger, he published the book We Make History containing critical portraits of leading Nazis and shocking testimonies of their victims under the pseudonym Robert Ziller. Ziegler and his partner Susan Snow left England, which had never really felt like home, and went to Spain, where an expressive late group of works were created. In need of care, Richard Ziegler only returned to his homeland of Germany in old age.

Richard Ziegler died on 23rd February 1992 in his birthplace of Pforzheim, only a few weeks before his 101stt birthday.