Wilson Art Gallery Past Seasons, 2007-2018

Robert Hofmann: A View of the Middle East (1914-1928)

October 10 – November 7, 2014

An exhibit of Robert Hofmann’s paintings, pastels and sketches set in the Middle East from World War I and after will open at the Wilson Gallery, in the Noreen Reale Falcone Library on the Le Moyne campus.

Robert Hofmann (1889 - 1987) studied art at the Vienna Academy after serving in the Austrian and Ottoman armies during World War I. After completing his training he returned to the Middle East further developing his unique body of work. Following a career that took him from Vienna, to London, and Australia, Hofmann subsequently settled in Syracuse in 1956 where he maintained a studio on James Street and taught painting until his death. He received the Prix de Rome and the Kenyon Traveling Fellowship.

Inglis, Ken, Seumas Spark, Jay Winter, and Carol Bunyan. Dunera Lives, A Visual History. Victoria, Australia: Monash University Publishing, 2018.

• In July 1940, around 2000 refugees, most of whom were Jewish and from Germany or Austria, were sent from Britain to Australia on the HMT Dunera.  London resident and artist Robert Hofmann was one of them. His pastel on paper, "A hut and a tree," is the illustration on page 252. His 1948 painting of Herbert Barber appears on page 373.
   
• "The story of the ‘Dunera boys’ is an intrinsic part of the history of Australia in the Second World War and in its aftermath. The injustice these men suffered in internment camps at Hay, Tatura and Orange is well known. Less familiar is the tale of what happened to them afterwards."----Monash University Publishing

Left: "Herby Kirby," drawing, c1960s, Le Moyne College, Noreen Reale Falcone Library

Right: "The Nile Delta," 1925, oil on board. 3ft x 4ft.