industrial designer, graphic artist and sculptor, came to Australia in the prison ship Dunera and was interned at Tatura (Vic.) where he either helped produce or produced alone the POW magazine, Brennessel Hinter Stacheldraht (Stinging Nettles Behind Barbed Wire ) – copy sold at Sotheby’s Rare Book sale, Melbourne, for $3,900. His monotype of the camp, Huts at Night 1941, is in the National Gallery of Australia. Other Dunera Boys who worked at Australasian Post included Frederick Schonbach and Klaus Friedeberger .

After his release Fabian went to Melbourne where he was the leader of a group of young German artists, several of whom contributed to Argus publications especially the Australasian Post (1946-47) under art editor Alan McCulloch along with Albert Tucker and McCulloch himself. (Craig Judd could not find any signed examples of his work in Post ). He worked as an advertising artist in Melbourne and contributed drawings and designs to Army Education publications. In 1950 he moved to London, worked as a designer and lectured at the London School of Printing. He returned to Melbourne in 1962 and commenced work as a sculptor, exhibiting there and in other Australian capital cities as well as London.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007