Klaus Friedeberger

Painter, born in Berlin, Germany, in 1922. Friedeberger left Germany in 1938 for Quakerschool Eerde in Holland, reaching England in 1939, a Jewish refugee from German persecution. Interned as an 'enemy alien' and transported on the Dunera to Australia, he was held in Hay, Orange, and Tatura. In 1942 Friedeberger joined the Australian army in the 8th Australian Employment Company. Demobbed in 1946 he studied painting at East Sydney Technical College, Darlinghurst, (1947-50) under the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme (CRTS). His fellow students and friends included Fred Schonbach (also a former internee from the Dunera), Guy Warren, Tony Tuckson, Tom Thompson, Oliffe Richmond, Alan Ingram, and amongst the younger, 'regular' students, Elizabeth Rooney and Clytie Lloyd-Jones.

In the summer 1947-48 he hitch-hiked with Guy Warren through Queensland to Alice Springs, returning via Adelaide and Melbourne to Sydney. While at the College he assisted Douglas Annand on a mural commission in 1949, and in the same year collaborated with Tony Tuckson on a set of murals on the ship Manoora. Apart from work at the art school he produced paintings and monotypes.

After receiving his diploma he left for a study tour of Europe in 1950 (helped by winning the Mosman Art Prize in 1949). Eventually working in England, the intended return to Australia never happened.

Some of his early work was in a Surrealist manner, for example Shopping Centre, 1942 (National Gallery of Australia). From 1944-49 he exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society in its interstate exhibitions.

In England he produced a series of brightly coloured paintings, mainly of children at play, characterized by a formalized expressionist intensity. For some time he combined painting with work as a graphic designer and teacher of graphic design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the London College of Printing. His first one-man show was held in London in 1963 at the Hamilton Galleries. The gallery also showed Oliffe Richmond and Tony Underhill. In the late 1960s his work slowly changed fundamentally, eventually figurative representation and the use of colour were abandoned altogether. His new achromatic paintings were exhibited in a show in 1968 at the Warwick Arts Trust, London. He had further solo shows in London in 1990 and 1992. In 2007 a show at England & Co, London, 'Klaus Friedeberger Works 1940 - 1970' had a separate section given over to work done in Australia.

In Australia he participated in 'Surrealism in Australia', organised by the National Gallery of Australia (1993). The NGA purchased three of his works. His work also featured in the NGA's exhibitions 'The Europeans: emigré artists in Australia, 1930-1960' (1997) and 'Australian Surrealism: The Agapitos/Wilson Collection' (2008). His work was included in 'Lines of Fire: Armed Forces to Art School' (2008), an exhibition at the National Art School in Sydney of work by CRTS students at the school between 1944 and 1950.

Klaus Friedeberger.