Johnny Friedlaender
(1912-1992)
Johnny Friedlaender was born in Pless (Silesia) in 1912. He attended the Academy of Arts in Breslau, where he studied under Otto Mueller. In 1930, Friedlaender moved to Dresden, Germany, where he had exhibitions at the J. Sandel Gallery and the Dresden Art Museum. Despite fleeing to Paris in 1937 as a political refugee of the Nazi regime, he was interned in a series concentration camps from 1939 to 1943. Friedlaender survived and emigrated to Czechoslovakia in 1944. Friedlaender returned to Paris in 1947 and had a successful career working for several newspapers. He became a French citizen in 1950. In 1951, Friedlaender began exhibiting worldwide, with shows that year in Tokyo and Milan. By 1953, he had produced works for a one man show which exhibited in Amsterdam, São Paulo, and Paris. Friedlaender was awarded the Biennial Kakamura Prize in Tokyo in 1957. He was also awarded a teaching post by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. Friedlaender continued to travel and exhibit his artwork throughout North and South America and Europe. In 1968, he purchased a home in Burgandy, France, where he settled and taught classes out of his studio. Several of his students went on to become noteworthy artists, including Arthur Luiz Piza, Brigitte Coudrain, Rene Carcan, and Graciela Rodo Boulanger. Friedlaender’s work was honored with retrospectives organized by the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1978, and by the Bremen Art Museum in 1987. In 1981 he was awarded the Lovis Corinth Prize. Johnny Friedlaender died in Paris in 1992.
