A tribute to Erich Schmid (1908-1984)

Born in Vienna, 14 October 1908. In 1925 he attended the School of Art in Vienna while still studying psychiatry and psychoanalysis. It was during his studies that he met W. Reich who became his own analyst. He was very much involved in Vienna’s cultural and artistic scene until 1937. He knew painters and musicians, most notably Kokoschka, Kubin, Mahler and the writer Werfel and was regularly seen fraternising with the intelligentsia of the day. After the Anschluss in which Austria became annexed to Germany he left Austria never to return. In 1940 he headed for France and after roaming around for a while he settled in Paris where he lived until his death in 1984. He started to rise to prominence in Parisian artistic circles in the 1960s. Thanks to painters Garbell and Cottavoz, Jacques Zeitoun, artistic director at the gallery "Art Vivant" then later the "Kriegel Gallery", exhibited his art practically right up to his death.
He is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris.

Let’s take a look at: capital cities, our foreign capitals abandoned under twilight skies of bloodreds: Vienna, Paris, Brussels, places where the aimless wander, sleepwalking like zombies. Cities whose facades have been etched out by unknown hands.

Shivering couples making their way under early morning skies  awaiting dawn to break, hovering at church doors that remain firmly sht. Bottles cupped in the hand that stretches out towards the glass, the last refuge of despair, and then Man alone, eternally alone, lost and humiliated.

Ignored for most of his life, Schmid, the ultimate witness to this "Mitropa" should have shone so brightly for more than half a century and his work was at the point of disapperring completely when he was discovered and now disappear, carries on the adventure in an era that has become bereft of all loving and caring.  Highly informed by scientific training and a highly mind. He voluntarily turned his back on the diktats of the time  to develop a concept which is still very much in evidence today, that which is made up of real feeling and emotion.

He gives us back simple a taste for bread and wine and shows us once again that red is the colour of our blood, black the colour of the night that protects or scares us, and that our feelings are the best thing about ourselves. His work portrays the true and gritty reality of life that is born out of an indelible memory of all the images he encountered throughout his life. However, he is not the slightest bit judgmental, but instead quietly accepting of the human condition: "such is life", he seems to say to us. Perhaps because, in his highly passive resistance, Erich Schmid knows that the world is not prefect, that things are not black or white, and that at the end of the day there are neither winners nor losers. Instead, every moment, even the lowest, merits being lived with dignity. Michel Aubert. April/May 2001

Main exhibitions:

 Michel Grandier Gallery - Paris, 1951 - St Georges Gallery - Lyon, 1960/69/91.

Art Vivant Gallery- Paris, 1961 - Mendel Art Gallery - Saskatoon, (Canada) 1965.

 Kriegel Gallery - Paris 1972/75/77 - Nathalie Norrabat Gallery - Paris, 1978.

"Le Roi des Aulnes" -Paris, 1981- Claude Hemery Gallery-Paris,1984. Guénégaud Gallery - Paris,1995.

La Capitale Gallery - Paris  2001 - (Tribute - permanent collection) 

His works of art feature in many private collections, notably that of the Fred Mendel Foundation, - Saskatoon (Canada)