folios the new title: Köpfe berühmter Schachmeister. Fortunately, Chess Life chose to publish the Ostrava tourney
subjects rather than the portraits I found in the Berlin newspa- pers, thus generating astounding results. Soon I was contacted by the owner of Portfolio No. 27, the very one belonging to Lasker, with a handwritten dedication from my father on the title page. This was followed by the discovery of two portfolios in private col- lections and Portfolio No. 28, donated by the Dutch chess problem author and collector Dr. Meindert Niemeijer to the KB-National Library of the Netherlands. Most likely my father gave portraits to all the portrayed chess masters. An example is Rubinstein, who received his portrait with an inscription from the artist. Presum- ably there could be Friedmann portraits in the estates of other chess masters, collectors or their circle of friends. Lasker was among thousands of persecuted Jews who fled Nazi
Germany and eventually made their home in the United States. Friedmann was caught in the web of the Nazi regime; he tried to flee, but was too late. His path was a tragic and tumultuous journey until he reached the United States in 1954. A survivor of Auschwitz, his first family was murdered and everything he owned was lost. Imagine the joy when in 1973 my father received photos of the “Magnificent Fourteen” from the Ostrava Museum. “You see Miri,” he proudly said, “I was really a famous artist before the war. I was known for these chess portraits.” I felt sad that there was little to show of his past recognition. This fueled my passion to find these works and to rescue his reputation from oblivion. Friedmann lost his works three times: before, during, and after World War II. Therefore, my pursuit evolved into a simul- taneous search for art created during his incarcera-tion in the Lodz Ghetto, the Auschwitz sub-camp Gleiwitz I, and works lost when fleeing Stalinist Czechoslovakia to Israel. It was very disappointing in 1994 not to find a shred of evidence
of the portfolio in the Ostrava Museum. I consoled myself with the delightful portraits discovered in Berlin’s newspapers and felt victorious each time a new chess player appeared on the page. I saw a new dimension of the wonderful personality that was my father and an extraordinary view of his rich, cultural life before the Nazi regime. I met the historian Detlef Lorenz who joined my search and found a treasure of published portraits in Der Deutsche Rundfunk. I contributed to his book, David Friedmann, Ein Berliner Pressezeichner der 1920er Jahre. The portraits cre- ated in various techniques were autographed by the subject and signed in diverse styles and signatures: D. Friedmann, Dav. Friedmann, DaFrie,
D.Fr, Fried, DF, Fr.Dav, or just Friedmann. History has a curious way of confirming itself. After 30 years
and monumental odds, astonishing evidence of my father’s lost years and art have surfaced: paintings, drawings, etchings, lithographs and 400 published drawings, including numer- ous portraits of chess masters, among them: Alexander Alekhine, Dawid Janowski, Paul F. Johner, and Lajos Steiner. Several par- ticipants of the Ostrava tourney seemed like old friends as I encountered them in a marvelous array of portrayals. I have gained new impressions and facts in the story of David Fried- mann and his famous chess portraits. In the article for Chess Life, I tentatively assessed that there were only three portfolios. However, after having been lost for a second time, it was Portfolio No. 4, Das Schachmeister Turnier in Mährisch
1:
Ostrau, Juli 1923, which emerged in the Ostrava Museum in 2006. Still today, I can’t confirm the exact number produced with this title. It is logical to assume that there were only 50 portfolio editions together with Köpfe berühmter Schachmeister. Berlin was one of the chess-playing centers in the world. The
chess masters were known everywhere as superstars. An impor- tant newspaper in those times without at least a page of daily chess news was inconceivable. At the end of 1923, Friedmann’s art was propelled into a new direction because of the wide- spread recognition for his sensational portraits. He was sought after and engaged by the press and became a leading press artist. Friedmann formed friendships and sketched the chess players who appeared in Germany and followed them from tourna- ment to tournament. He collected his drawings in anticipation of matches he could not attend. His portraits were published in any number of 240 newspapers throughout Germany and coun- tries with German- language newspapers. Michael Negele from the Ken Whyld Association sent a photo
of a clipping from Lasker’s scrapbook at the Cleveland Public Library. This was a major clue. For here was the Lasker portrait created in 1923 in Ostrava and it was published in 1924 for the elite New York International Chess Tournament. I was determined to find the exact date and source. The portraits of Lasker, Tar- takower, Réti and Bogoljubow were found in the April 6, 1924 issue of the illustrated supplement “Zeitbilder” of the Vossische Zeitung, in Berlin. The published portraits were exactly those from the orig- inal portfolio. While searching the newspapers, I came across the U.S. chess
champion, Frank J. Marshall, pictured among other Friedmann subjects from the 1925 Moscow International Tournament. Friedmann likely portrayed Marshall in Baden-Baden along with several players for future submissions. This was characteristic of his method of working. Other examples are the José Raúl Capa- blanca, Milan Vidmar, and Aron Nimzowitsch portraits used for the 1927 New York International Tournament. In 1960, Friedmann became a proud United States citizen and
dropped the double “n” spelling of his surname. After retiring from commercial art in 1962, he continued painting and draw- ing with frequent breaks to play his beloved violin and a game of chess. Friedmann died in 1980 in St. Louis, Missouri, after a lifetime of achievement. He has been recognized internation- ally as materials continue to surface. A number of his works can be seen in the permanent displays of the The Holocaust His- tory Museum (Yad Vashem, Israel) and the St. Louis Holocaust Museum & Learning Center, which held a major exhibition in 2005. The United Nations Headquarters in New York, the Terezín Memorial, and the Berliner Philharmonie, have also hosted significant exhibitions of his works. At the 1925 Juryfreie Kunstschau in Berlin, he exhibited a
watercolor, Die Schachspieler. This painting is among hundreds of works that are lost without a trace, including a significant num- ber of chess player portraits. I would be grateful for leads to any artwork by David Friedman(n). My aim is to create a catalogue of his works, evidence of his brilliant career the Nazis could not destroy. Thus, I appeal to the reader to join my search and pre- serve the legacy of this remarkable artist. Please see portfolio samples on the next two pages.
For more information, please see the websites: Searching for the Lost Art of David Friedmann—
www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/ friedmann/
lostArt.html, Portraits of Famous Chess Masters 1923—
www.kb.nl/vak/schaak/portretten/friedmann/index-en.html, Friedman Morris, Miriam, David Friedmann’s Artwork for Berlin’s Newspapers, Chess Life, U.S. Chess Federation. Vol. 51, No. 9. September 1996. pp. 40-41. The author thanks Martin Weissenberg and Detlef Lorenz for their help.
uschess.org Chess Life — July 2011 49
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