Franziska Schlopsnies, '' born Spangenthal ''(born on 1 December 1884 in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

am Main; died on 30 December 1944 in

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

) was a German fashion, poster and

graphic designer A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, either within companies or organizations or independently. They are professionals in design and visual communication, with their primary focus on transforming ...

. In the 1920s, her

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

illustrations and covers appeared in, among others, the weeklies '' Jugend'', ''

Simplicissimus :''Simplicissimus is also a name for the 1668 novel ''Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus, Simplicius Simplicissimus'' and its protagonist.'' ''Simplicissimus'' () was a German language, German weekly satire, satirical magazine, founded by Albert ...

'', ''

Meggendorfer-Blätter ''Meggendorfer-Blätter'' was a German art and satirical magazine, which was published in Munich, Germany, from 1888 to 1944. The magazine was closely related to the illustrator and painter Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925). History and profile Th ...

'', and ''

Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung The ''Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung'', often abbreviated ''BIZ'', was a German weekly illustrated magazine published in Berlin from 1892 to 1945. It was the first mass-market German magazine and pioneered the format of the illustrated news magazine ...

''.

Biography

Franziska Spangenthal was born in Frankfurt am Main as the eldest of three daughters of the

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

merchant Robert Spangenthal and his wife Henriette Klein. Her father was a wholesaler of chemical products and machine oils. Shortly after the death of her father in 1905, she met painter, puppet-maker and

caricaturist A caricaturist is an artist who specializes in drawing caricatures. List of caricaturists * Abed Abdi (born 1942) * Abril Lamarque (1904–1999) * Al Hirschfeld (1903–2003) * Alex Gard (1900–1948) * Alexander Saroukhan (1898–1977) * Alfre ...

. The son of a Protestant landowner from

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

, he studied at the

Munich Art Academy The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. In the second half of the 19th centur ...

with

Gabriel von Hackl Gabriel (von) Hackl (24 March 1843 – 5 June 1926) was a German historicist painter. Life and work He was born in Maribor, Lower Styria, Austrian Empire. A surgeon's son, he attended the gymnasium in his home town and the city school in Graz ...

from 1903. On 15 September 1910 in Frankfurt Franziska married Albert, who was by then employed as a freelancer at

Margarete Steiff GmbH Steiff is a German-based plush toy company, founded in 1880, with headquarters in Giengen, Germany. The company claims to have made the world's first factory-made teddy bear. History Steiff was founded in 1880 by Margarete Steiff, a seamst ...

, for which he designed catalogs and numerous dolls and stuffed animals. In 1913, Franziska and Albert moved to

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and settled in the

Schwabing Schwabing is a borough in the northern part of Munich, the Capital (political), capital of the Germany, German state of Bavaria. It is part of the city borough 4 (Schwabing-West) and the city borough 12 (Schwabing-Freimann). The population of Sc ...

district. In May 1915 their daughter Irmgard Erika was born. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Franziska Schlopsnies began designing posters for fashion shows, department stores and exhibitions. One of her earliest surviving designs was made in 1920 for the Tietz department store. After the couple's

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

on 18 December 1922 she often signed her designs with the name "Slopsnies". From the mid-1920s, she preferred to draw figurines and costumes. Along with Doris Buscher, Liliane and Margaret von Suttner she was considered among the most important fashion illustrators. Her Art Deco-inspired fashion drawings and caricatures were regularly published in magazines, such as ''Jugend'', ''Simplicissimus'', ''Eleganten Welt'', ''Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung'', ''Sport im Bild'' and the monthly ''Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte''. For the satirical periodicals ''

Fliegende Blätter The ' ("Flying Leaves"; also translated as "Flying Pages" or "Loose Sheets") was a German weekly humor and satire magazine appearing between 1845 and 1944 in Munich. Many of the illustrations were by well-known artists such as Wilhelm Busch, Cou ...

'' and ''Meggendorfer-Blätter'', she designed numerous covers in the second half of the 1920s. After

Adolf Hitler's rise to power The rise to power of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919, when Hitler joined the ''German Workers' Party, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Par ...

, she produced no known published drawings. To secure her livelihood and that of her daughter, she rented some rooms in her apartment to students. Both her sisters and her mother succeeded in

emigrating Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

, while Franziska could have been at first spared deportation because she was the mother of a daughter who, by the definition of the

National Socialists Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

, was a "

Mischling (; ; ) was a pejorative legal term which was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed " Aryan" and "non-Aryan", such as Jewish, ancestry as they were classified by the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, the word has the general ...

erson of Jewish mixed raceof the first degree". Regarding the date of her deportation, the record is contradictory. She was deported in 1943 or January 1944 with an unknown destination. On 30 December 1944 Franziska Schlopsnies died in the concentration camp Auschwitz. Her daughter Erika survived

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in 1946. Today at international auctions Franziska Schlopsnies' graphics and prints reach prices of up to several thousand

Euros The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

Selection of works

* Advertisement for a fashion show in Hause Tietz, 1920 * Advertisement for Schirm Schönherr,

Theatinerstraße Theatinerstraße is a street in Munich's old town. It connects the Odeonsplatz with the southern Marienhof and houses a number of Neoclassical architecture, classical buildings and several shops. The street received its name due to the adjoining T ...

; München 1923 * Advertisement for the exhibition ''Der gedeckte Tisch'', München 1926 * Advertisement for the company Andreas Kaut * Advertisement for the company Gebr. E & J Marx, München * ''Die modische Linie'', 1923 (Jugend Heft 22) * ''An der Riviera'', 1926, (Jugend Heft 36) * ''Geeignet'', 1926 (''Meggendorfer-Blätter'' Nr. 1875) * ''Offenherzig – Elegantes Paar im Gespräch über den Wert der Zeit des Mannes'', 1927 (''Meggendorfer-Blätter'' Nr. 1895) * ''Die Spanierin'', 1926 (Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte Nr. 41 6), 1928 (''Illustrirte Zeitung'' Nr. 4347-4359) * ''Der Geschiedene'', 1927 (''Meggendorfer-Blätter'' Nr. 1890) * ''Vor dem Spiegel'', 1927 (''Sport im Bild'' 1927 Nr. 2) * ''Kühl'', 1927, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4278) * ''Pietät'', 1928 (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4320) * ''Die prüde Gattin'', 1928 (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4328) * ''Paradox'', 1928 (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4335) * ''Paar beim Spaziergang mit Hund'', 1928 (''Fliegende Blätter''. Nr. 4368) * ''Fasching der eleganten Welt: auf dem Ball Pare im Deutschen Theater zu München'', 1928, (''Illustrirte Zeitung'' Nr. 4323) * ''Argument'', 1929 (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4367) * ''Der Tag fängt an'', 1929, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4375) * ''Eben wollt ich 'nen Kuss, Thea'', 1929, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4379) * ''Aber Meta..- mit diesen Launen quälst du dich und mich'', 1931, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4493) * ''Diese Segler sind mir zu dreist'', 1932, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4528) * ''Große Wirkungen'', 1932, (''Fliegende Blätter'' Nr. 4551) Schlopsnies Nach Coué (cropped).jpg, ''Nach Coué'' — ''"Ich werde von Tag zu Tag in jeder hinsicht hübscher und hübscher."'' 1922 Schlopsnies Offenherzig (cropped).jpg, ''Offenherzig,'' 1927 Schlopsnies Auf der Terrasse von San Sebastian.jpg, ''Auf der Terrasse von San Sebastian.'' 1927 Schlopsnies Die pruede Gattin (cropped).jpg, ''Die prüde Gattin,'' 1928 Schlopsnies Mit dir kann man nie gehn, Vetter (cropped).jpg, ''Mit Dir kann man nie gehen, Vetter..,'' 1929 Schlopsnies Aber Meta (cropped).jpg, ''Aber Meta..,'' 1931 Schlopsnies Diese Segler sind mir zu dreist (cropped).jpg, ''Diese Segler sind mir zu dreist,'' 1932

Notes

External links

*
artnet.de: Franziska Schlopsnies: ''Modeschau im Hause Tietz'', 1920

exhibit Defiance at Jewish Museum Berlin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schlopsnies, Franziska 20th-century German illustrators German magazine illustrators Art Deco designers German advertising artists and illustrators German caricaturists German women caricaturists Jewish caricaturists German graphic designers German women artists 1884 births 1944 deaths German Jews who died in the Holocaust German people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp German women graphic designers Jewish German artists Jewish women artists 20th-century German women German poster artists