H.V.Meyerowitz
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Herbert Vladimir Meyerowitz (1900 in
St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...
– 1945 in London) was an artist, educator and British colonial administrator in South Africa and Basutoland (modern-day Lesotho), and then later in the British Gold Coast colony.


Early life

Meyerowitz's father was a wealthy German businessman and his mother a Russian pianist who had studied with
Arthur Rubinstein Arthur Rubinstein Order of the British Empire, KBE OMRI (; 28 January 1887 – 20 December 1982) was a Polish Americans, Polish-American pianist.
. At the time of the
1905 Revolution The Russian Revolution of 1905, also known as the First Russian Revolution, was a revolution in the Russian Empire which began on 22 January 1905 and led to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Russian Constitution of 1906, t ...
, the family moved from Russia to Switzerland, where Meyerowitz was educated at a Pestalozzi school. His education was completed in England, with holidays in Russia. The family were in Russia when
war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
broke out in 1914 and, because of their German nationality, they were interned at
Ekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...
. They moved to Berlin in 1916 as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Germany. In 1918, Meyerowitz served briefly in the German army. After the war, he returned to Berlin to study art. Together with his future wife, Eva Lewin-Richter, he developed an enthusiasm for the art of West Africa. Meyerowitz went on to study woodcarving at the
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for the ...
. He became an admirer of the educational theories of Franz Cižek.


Work in South Africa and Lesotho

On the completion of his art training, Meyerowitz moved to South Africa with his wife Eva, where he established a reputation as a wood sculptor. He taught for five years at
Cape Town University The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest university in South Afri ...
and opened a school of art. In 1935, he made a study of the crafts in
Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...
(then Basutoland), which he wrote up in ''A Report on the Possibilities of the Development of Village Crafts in Basutoland'' (Morija Printing Works, 1936). He organised an exhibition of African Arts and Crafts as part of the International Educational Conference in
Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...
,
Rhodesia Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
. He said in a speech that the traditional African art on show was "good, because it still fulfilled its purpose", but that the work brought in from the schools and institutions was "trash ... which we, in the name of education, had inflicted on the people of Africa".Cardew, Michael, "A Pioneer Potter", London, Collins, 1989, p.125


Move to Ghana

The Rev. H.M.Grace, the Principal of Achimota College in the Gold Coast (
Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...
), offered Meyerowitz the job of arts and crafts supervisor. Achimota College had been founded in 1927 as a selective boarding school to train an African élite. It combined Western educational methods with the study of local customs, languages, biology and geography. Meyerowitz and Eva made a survey of the indigenous crafts of the Gold Coast, which they found to be in decline. At Achimota, he replaced Western-style art classes based on academic drawing with an arts and crafts approach based on local skills and traditions.


Institute of West African Arts

From 1937, Meyerowitz began to develop a scheme for an Institute of West African Arts, Industries and Social Sciences, which would be a "marriage of the aesthetic skill and power to modern technique"."The Institute of West African Arts, Industries, and Social Sciences", in ''Man'', Vol.43, Sept–Oct 1943, pp.112–114, published by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. It would investigate local arts and crafts, teach certain native crafts in the light of European experience and create local craft industries. It would also investigate local history, tribal life, customs, religion and economic conditions. This scheme was approved by the West African Governors' Conference at
Lagos Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...
in 1939 and the Advisory Committee on Education in 1940. Before the
war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...
, African colonies had depended on the export of commodities, which was made almost impossible by enemy shipping. The
Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...
adopted instead a policy developing indigenous industries and eventually accepted Meyerowitz's idea. In 1943, the institute was set up under the direction of the Rev. Robert Stopford. Meyerowitz's colleague Michael Cardew records that only the power of Meyerowitz's "magnetic eloquence (backed up by the pressure of the war) could have persuaded the Colonial Office to support the project and the
Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...
to release the necessary funds." Meyerowitz planned the institute on the basis of production units that would combine the arts with industry. "If industries are to be established for West African needs," he argued, "the only alternative to white capital and coloured labour is a self-contained development of the kind now proposed; and the people as a whole benefit more from many local production units on a co-operative basis than from concentrated industrial centres". In 1936, on the recommendation of the English studio potter Michael Cardew, Meyerowitz appointed Harry Davis to teach pottery at Achimota and expand the pottery department to manufacture bricks, tiles, water coolers and glazed ware. The college also produced textiles. Davis resigned in 1942, and was replaced by Cardew, who undertook a large expansion of the pottery on a site at Alajo, with the aim of creating a profitable business that would meet all the pottery needs of West Africa, including that of the British Army. The pottery made continuing losses and the educated Africans who worked as apprentices found little to admire in Cardew's studio pottery approach.Harrod, Tanya, "Achimota College and the West African Institute", in Cardew, Michael, ''A Pioneer Potter'', London, Collins, 1989 Grace had retired from the college in 1940, depriving Meyerowitz of a useful ally. Stopford returned to England in 1945. The financial losses at the Institute brought its future into question.


Death

While in London in 1945, Meyerowitz discovered that his mother, who had remained in Russia, had died in the
Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...
. He committed suicide in the same year, dying at home, 12 Girdless Road, London W14."MEYEROWITZ Herbert Vladimir of 12 Girdless-road London W.14" in ''Wills and Administrations 1947 (England and Wales)'' (1948), p. 729 The inquest recorded that he had suffered from "manic depressive
cyclothymia Cyclothymia (, ), also known as cyclothymic disorder, psychothemia / psychothymia, bipolar III, affective personality disorder and cyclothymic personality disorder, is a mental disorder, mental and Abnormal behaviour, behavioural Disease#Disorder ...
". Shortly after his death, the Institute of West African Arts was closed.


References


External links



Photographs by Meyerowitz in the Wellcome Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Meyerowiz, H.V. Education in Ghana South African Jews South African people of German-Jewish descent South African people of Russian-Jewish descent 1900 births 1945 deaths 1945 suicides People with bipolar disorder Suicides in Kensington German Jewish military personnel of World War I Expatriates from the Russian Empire in Switzerland Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United Kingdom British emigrants to South Africa Gold Coast (British colony) people Prisoners and detainees of Russia People interned during World War I