Hans Feibusch leaves a legacy of work with 3 main themes: the natural world, the old and new testaments and mythology. Widely known for his mural painting, he completed over forty murals in churches, cathedrals, synagogues and public buildings. Born 15 August 1898 in Frankfurt am Main, he was the son of a dentist, a middle class and a liberal Jewish family. His mother was an amateur artist and she took Hans to the theatre and exhibitions when he was very small. Hans went to the equivalent of a grammar school. He had good teachers: French, Latin and Greek were his first subjects.
He loved Latin, “Its precision and logic appealed to me greatly.”
By 1916 Hans was made to leave fulltime education. He was conscripted as an army private and sent to the Russian Front. This period deeply affected him. His mother gave him a sleeping bag made from camel hair: “This saved my life”!
He was part of a heavy artillery regiment and his duty was to mathematically work out the height/distance for the firing of the guns. ”I was hopeless at maths; I don’t think I ever helped to kill anybody”. Later he was to take reconnaissance drawings and photos and locate them on maps that he drew. Although long before this he wanted to be an artist, this work was coincidental. He was however invited to do a number of portraits of those in the higher ranks. This earned him extra coffee and food; a welcome addition to the very meagre rations. He was deeply affected by the whole experience, “The dense, dark and mysterious forests.”
By 1918 he returned to Frankfurt and from there went to Berlin. Hans Feibusch went to study at the school of Stanislas Stuckgold and by 1920 became a master student of Carl Hofer. Hans brought Hofer a few examples of his work, Hofer was relatively unimpressed, nevertheless, took him on. After some months Hans painted a still life, a pot of flowers and some fruit. Hofer looked and said “That’s good, very good, you don’t know yourself how good it is; it will take you months to do another like that”! That was the beginning of his career. Hans described Hofer as an artist who painted figure paintings with very simplified lines, but with almost classical lights and shadows; a very good draughtsman. At that time, Hans liked the work of the German Expressionists, Franz Marc and some of Schmidt-Rottluff and then Klee with his abstract work. Hans came from a different line; he admired German Impressionism for example: Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth. He found their chief quality lay in their paint, use of colour and beautiful brush strokes. He liked this also in Augustus John and Matthew Smith.
By 1921-3 with a Rome scholarship he went to Florence, Pisa and Venice. He was already taken by the possibility of painting on walls and in Italy was drawn to Giotto, Masaccio, Piero Dela Francessca; “The classical, the grandeur and simplicity impressed me greatly”. By 1923 he went to Paris and studied under Andre Lhote and Othon Friesz. He exhibited at the Salon d`Automne and the Paris Independants. By 1925 he returned to Frankfurt and became a member of the Frankfurt Artists Association. He participated in many group exhibitions in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and at the Prussian Academy of Arts. There was now recognition of his work and he was very much a part of the art establishment.
Hans Feibusch had never been a political animal, but he foresaw the political horizon, perhaps because of one experience in particular. The Frankfurt Artists Association would meet regularly and show each other their latest work. Around 1932 the members of the Society wrote to the local town council, complaining that they were never given official commissions. One day a man arrived asking if he could become a member. He attended the meetings until one day he turned up in full S S uniform; he jumped on the table and pointed to the Jewish members saying, “You and you can go home; you will never show or sell your work ever again.”
So Hans considered emigrating to France; “But it was too close for comfort”. He also considered Palestine, however, his future wife was English and together they came to London in 1933. He was given several introductions to the English art scene by among others Sir Kenneth Clarke. By 1934 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Lefreve Gallery, London, and the first of five one man shows with that gallery.
In 1935 he married and in the same year Feibusch was invited to become a member of the London Group; he came to know Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Graham Sutherland, and Matthew Smith. By 1936 there were some six Jewish members including, Mark Gertler, Jacob Epstein and Bernard Meninsky.
In 1937 Goebbels arranged the now infamous “Entartete Kunst” or Degenerate Art Exhibition. The show was very well attended by the public and some of the many artists whose work was shown included: Beckmann, Schwitters, Kokoschka, Hofer, Chagal and Feibusch whose work appeared in a room devoted to “The Revelation of the Jewish Soul.” A prominent piece was Feibusch`s Two Floating Figures. Hans recalled it well: “It showed an angel floating through the air above two figures. I’m sure it was destroyed. A lot of my work met the same fate, although some of it was found later. But I had to leave all that behind me, I was thankful to have got out and I just got on with my new life.”
Until his death in July 1998, Feibusch was believed to be the last surviving artist of the Degenerate Art Exhibition. An inventory of works was found through research in the 1990’s. It was created by the Nazis, and among the scores of artists, were some six works by Hans Feibusch and an “X” against each one indicating that they had all been destroyed.
In 1938 Feibusch was granted British citizenship and in the same year he found the studio in St. John’s Wood (Landseer Studios). He stayed there sixty years. It was 1938 when Hans received his first ever mural commission, “The Footwashing” at the Methodist Church, Colliers Wood, indirectly brought to him by the architect Maxwell Fry, a fellow member of the London Group. This was reproduced in The Times. Sir Kenneth Clarke saw it and passed it to Bishop George Bell. This introduction was among the most important in Hans’s professional life. They became great friends. Bell was a patron of the arts and interested in bringing the church and contemporary artists together. He is thus responsible for giving Hans many of his most important mural commissions such as Chichester Cathedral and St. Elizabeth’s, Eastbourne on which he worked during 1944.
In 1967 Germany awarded him the German Order of Merit 1st Class. Later in 1970 he suffered cataracts in both eyes. His operation was a success, though his eyes were covered, for over six weeks. Feeling frustrated he went to a local sculpture class. This was the start of many commissions for portrait busts and figures from mythology and the Bible. Some of his commissions during the 1970`s included a seven foot figure of St. John the Baptist at St. John’s Wood Church and sculptures of Christ at Ely Cathedral and St. Albans the Martyr, Holborn in 1985.
In 1978/9 he had a one man show in Berlin and in 1986 another exhibition at the Historisches Museum, Frankfurt. By 1989 Germany awarded him the German Grand Cross of Merit. In 1985 Dr.Runcie then Archbishop of Canterbury awarded him an Honary Doctorate of Letters at a presentation in Lambeth Palace. Religion was clearly instrumental in his life, perhaps partly because of his work and the magnificent subjects that the Bible offers, but also to satisfy his spiritual needs.
He became and remained a Christian for nearly twenty years. However, in 1992 he formally left the Church of England, finding it no longer possible to believe in the Holy Trinity. From then until his death he chose not to belong to any denomination. At the time, he happened to see a number of major TV productions about the Holocaust. He was deeply moved by the horror of it all, and returned to his roots. During the last seven years of his life he worked mainly in pastel, producing a series of pictures all motivated by the Second World War.
At 97 years of age, Hans Feibusch was able to attend the private view for the 1995/6 UK touring retrospective exhibition, organised by Pallant House Gallery.
He continued to work at the easel until just a few weeks before his 100th birthday. He died peacefully on 18th July 1998.
Hans Feibusch
The Tate Collection
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the work of Hans Feibusch was banned. He escaped to Britain, becoming a British citizen in 1938. His work was included in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition and until his death in 1998; he was believed to be the last surviving artist whose work was shown in the famous "Entartete Kunst” exhibition. The painting 1939 relates to Feibusch’s experience as a soldier fighting on the Russian front from 1916-18. Feibusch had a brother and in 1929 he went skiing. Lutz was tragically killed in an avalanche and Feibusch had to meet the body at the train station. This experience was also much in mind when he painted 1939 his premonition of what was to come.
The Tate Gallery
The Bridgeman Art Library
The Bridgeman Library works with museums, art galleries and artists to make the best art available for reproduction. The result is an outstanding archive of images drawn from collections throughout the world.
There is a fine range of works by Hans Feibusch, all available for licensing.
Bridgeman Art Library
National Portrait Gallery
The architect, writer, landscape designer and conservationist Sir Clough Williams- Ellis is perhaps best known for Portmeirion, Wales, the village he created and built between1925-1975. They were good friends and Hans Feibusch completed several murals in Portmeirion.
The National Portrait Gallery
Pallant House Gallery
The Hans Feibusch Collection at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Pallant House Gallery has one of the most important collections of Modern British Art in the country. In 1997 the Gallery received the entire contents of Hans Feibusch’s North London studio. The studio, which had formerly been Landseer’s, was used by Feibusch from the 1930s until 1997. The Hans Feibusch collection at Pallant House Gallery includes around 80 paintings, 50 sculptures, several hundred drawings and studies, copies of all Feibusch’s lithographs (around 50 prints including proof stages), as well as the artist’s sketch books, easels, brushes, props, furniture and books – over 1,700 items in total. Pallant House Gallery also houses the Hans Feibusch Archive of photographs and ephemera. Whilst some work by Feibusch is always on show at the Gallery, to view specific items it is advisable to make an appointment. The Gallery is launching a Feibusch Loan Scheme to churches and galleries, to enable the artist’s work to be seen more widely. For more information please contact Simon Martin, (s.martin@pallant.org.uk) Head of Curatorial Services.
Pallant House Gallery
The photo is from December 1930 when Hans Feibusch was awarded the German Grand State Prize for Painters by the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin for the painting The Fishmonger.
The Hans Feibusch Club at Pallant House Gallery
The Hans Feibusch Club extends Pallant House Gallery’s commitment to helping those with disabilities. It caters for the needs of people with disabilities and those that require additional support who want to take part in creative activities and learn new skills. The Club offers a safe first step for those new to the art world and Pallant House Gallery, by providing an environment where they can work with like-minded people and staff skilled in working with people with a range of needs. The artists who lead the workshops at the Club use the Gallery, its collections and exhibitions as inspiration, exploring a range of approaches and techniques. The Club’s name was chosen by members of the group, who were inspired by the way that Feibusch continued to create art by working as a sculptor despite developing glaucoma late in life. Participants have often used props from the Hans Feibusch Studio as stimulus for their own work. The Hans Feibusch Club takes place on Thursday afternoons throughout the year and is free of charge. For more information contact Marc Steene, Head of Learning and Community at Pallant House Gallery (m.steene@pallant.org.uk)
Chichester Cathedral and Diocese
Dr George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, was a staunch supporter of German émigrés during the 1930s and he commissioned Feibusch to paint the first of a series of church murals in the Chichester Diocese in 1939, The Nativity in St Wilfred’s Church, Brighton. Bell subsequently commissioned other murals from Feibusch: in 1950 The Return of the Prodigal Son for All Saints Church in Iden and The Baptism of Christ for the Baptistry of Chichester Cathedral, the Ascension (1953) for the Bishop’s private chapel in Chichester and Christ in Majesty (1954) for Saint Mary’s in Goring-by-Sea. The Treasury of Chichester Cathedral also houses Feibusch’s major oil painting The Resurrection (1969), which is on loan from Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, which owns studies for all Feibusch’s murals in Sussex churches.
The Heat of Vision
Published by Lund Humphries in 1995, to accompany the first major retrospective of the artist to be held in Britain. The catalogue includes 16 colour and 84 b&w illustrations of Feibusch's best work from his long career. It illustrates the dramatic use of colour which has earned him the description:
“The artist of the glowing palette.”
For a copy, please contact us.
In 1946 Hans Feibusch published Mural Painting, a treatise on the history, theory and technique of the art. Published by Adam and Charles Black, London. Copies occasionally become available.
Please email your interest
Press
The Independant
“Feibusch has a proven career of artistry behind him and a historic involvement with Hitler's attempt to suppress the avant-garde. In the 1930s, the paintings of Hans Feibusch were labelled 'degenerate' by Hitler and destroyed. At 96 he is exhibiting again..."
Geraldine Normon looks at his life and achievements ...
"You will never exhibit in public again.’ Hans Feibusch witnessed the collision between art and power in Hitler's Germany..."
He relates the experience to Iain Gale...
The Daily Telegraph
“An Artist of the 20th century, Hans Feibusch's work was labelled degenerate by the Nazis. But 60 years on he is still painting."
Martin Gayford reports...
The Daily Telegraph obituary 20 July 1998
Hans Feibusch
Painter who had work included by the Nazis in their 1937 exhibition of Degenerate Art and whose mural in St Ethelburga's was blown
up by the IRA.
HANS FEIBUSCH, the German-born artist who has died aged 99, could claim the distinction of having had a painting shown in the Nazis' exhibition of Decadent Art in 1937; by that time, however, he was already living in England, where he would establish a new reputation as a muralist in Anglican churches.
Though Feibusch had never attempted a mural before coming to Britain in 1933, he had been fascinated during his travels in Italy during the 1920s by the work of Mantegna and Piero della Francesca. From the start, therefore, he was able to bring a new flair and boldness to what had become a rather timid and tired English tradition.
Indeed, the uncompromising nature of his work sometimes aroused criticism. In 1956, for example, there were complaints that Feibusch's figure of Christ, designed for the parish church of Goring, West Sussex, was un-Christian and "almost brutal". Feibusch loftily returned: "There is nothing specifically Christian in The Last Judgement of Michelangelo. It has always been my aim to follow the advice of Leonardo da Vinci, and bring out the essential Christ-like qualities in the figure itself." Dr George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, upheld him.
Feibusch was able to complete some 40 murals before his eyesight failed in the 1970s. Particularly notable are his Pilgrim's Progress at St Elizabeth, Eastbourne, a church now under threat of demolition; his Crucifixion at St John's, Waterloo Road, London; his Baptism of Christ at Chichester Cathedral; his Christ Surrounded by Angels at St Mark's, Coventry; and his Trinity in Glory and Stations of the Cross at St Alban, Holborn. But his Crucifixion at St Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, perished after the IRA blew up that church in 1993.
Feibusch executed a number of secular murals, the most striking of which is his gigantic History of Newport (Monmouthshire), completed in 1964 for the civic centre. The work comprises six paintings, each 18 ft high, on the two
50 ftft walls of the landing; altogether they contain 120 figures, slightly bigger than life size, in illustration of life in Newport since Roman times. Feibusch deliberately reduced obvious perspective to a minimum, achieving an impression of distance largely through colour. In this way he obtained something of the effect of a tapestry.
Feibusch took intense delight in his murals, as a man who had discovered what he was born to do. "To stand before an empty wall as in a trance," he rhapsodised, "to let shapes cloudily emerge, to draw scenes and figures, to let light and dark rush out of the surface, to make them move outward or recede into the depths, this was bliss." Yet it was fulfilment he might never have discovered but for the advent of Hitler.
The son of a dentist, Hans Feibusch was born in Frankfurt on August 15 1898 - when Cezanne and Gauguin were still painting. After fighting on the Russian front in the First World War, he studied art in Munich, Berlin, Rome and Paris.
Back in Frankfurt in the late 1920s, Feibusch came under the influence of the German Expressionists, and in particular of Max Beckmann. "I painted natural objects, or perhaps fantastic ones," he remembered, "but reduced to simple forms and bright colours holding a balance between what seemed to me the spiritually significant and the fussy detail." One of his paintings, The Fishnmonger, won the German Grand State Prize for Painters, awarded by the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Shortly after Hitler achieved power in January 1933, a new member joined Feibusch's art group in Frankfurt. At first he appeared anonymous, though always ready with excuses for failing to produce any work. But as the new regime began to tighten its grip, the newcomer appeared in Nazi uniform. "You, you, you," he shouted, pointing his riding whip at the Jewish members of the group, "you can just go home and forget about art. You will never show anything again."
Though Feibusch stayed to finish a commission for the portrait of an opera singer, he saw that the game was up in Germany. France was too close for comfort, Italy seemed "unsuitable"; and having been brought up as a liberal Jew, he felt no overwhelming attraction to Palestine. On the other hand, he was engaged to an Englishwoman. He therefore became one of the 200 or so German artists who fled to Britain during the 1930s.
The Nazis' exhibition of Degenerate Art took place in 1937. "From now on," Hitler explained at the opening, "we are going to wage a merciless war of destruction against the last remaining elements of cultural disintegraton. From now on - you can be certain - all those mutually supporting cliques of chatterers, dilettantes and art forgers will be picked up and liquidated."
The exhibition was divided into various sections, including "Vilification of German Heroes of the World War", "Mockery of German Womanhood" and "Complete Madness". Feibusch qualified under "Revelation of the Jewish Racial Soul", with a canvas entitled Two Floating Figures. He was in good company: Chagall and Kokoschka also featured in the exhibition.
Afterwards, the Nazis sent some of the paintings to auction in Switzerland; the rest, including Feibusch's work, were ceremonially burned in the yard of the Berlin Fire Brigade. Other paintings of his were removed from the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt and never seen again.
In Britain Feibusch at first kept body and soul together by designing bookjackets, and posters for Shell and the London Underground. He also undertook work for the Modernist architects Maxwell Fry and Charles Reilly. Another architect, Frankland Dark, initiated his new career by commissioning a mural for a chapel at Colliers Wood.
This painting was admired by Kenneth Clark and by Bishop Bell, who wrote to Feibusch in 1939 asking him to undertake another mural at St Wilfrid's, Brighton. "Does he know that I am a Jew?," Feibusch inquired. Bell did. Under his influence, Feibusch adopted Anglicanism. He had already become a British subject in 1938.
Feibusch's sight failed in 1973, though it was partially restored by the ministrations of the ophthalmic surgeon Patrick Trevor-Roper, brother of the historian. Though Feibusch did no more murals, he took up sculpture; one of his statues, of Christ, is in Ely Cathedral.
In old age, after seeing a film about the Holocaust he executed a series of paintings which sought to recapture that nightmare - "the hunting, the running away, the fall into terror," as he described them - in burning Expressionist colours. In 1992 he reconverted to Judaism.
After the Second World War Feibusch had gradually regained something of the status which he had enjoyed as a young man in Germany. He was accorded a restrospective exhibition in Frankfurt in 1986 and three years later awarded the German Grand Cross of Merit in 1967. In Britain in 1995, Paul Werth organised a touring show of his paintings, sketches and other work entitled The Heat of Vision. A collection of his work is kept at Pallant House, Chichester.
Hans Feibusch married, in 1935,
Sidonie Gestetner, daughter of David Gestetner, inventor of the duplicator. She died in 1963; they had no children.
The Guardian obituary 20 July 1998
Obituary: God's painter: Hans Feibusch
By TERENCE MULLALY
HANS Feibusch , who has died aged 99, was a German Jew responsible for more murals in churches in England than any other 20th century artist.
He displayed a subtle, profound understanding of the decorative role art can continue to play, and of the Christian message.
He eventually converted to Christianity, but in 1992 he formally left the Church of England and shortly before his death said: 'I am just a very tired old Jew.' An artist whose subject matter had been mythology, the Bible and the natural world focused at the end on the Holocaust.
His life was beset by ironies. In 1930, he received the German Grand State Prize for painting. In 1937, his work was banned and destroyed by the Nazis. In 1986, he had a major retrospective exhibition in Frankfurt as early as 1967 he had been awarded the German Order of Merit (first class), and in 1989 received the Grand Cross of Merit. He was in his last years the sole survivor of those whose work had been banned in the notorious Nazi exhibition of 'degenerate art'.
England, where he lived from 1933, was at first parsimonious with honours and critical recognition. Despite the enthusiasm for his work shown by men as perceptive as Maxwell Fry and Walter Hussey, it was not until 1997 that the Tate Gallery acquired a canvas. His first major retrospective in Britain was at Brighton Polytechnic in 1988. In 1995, another was held at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, which later toured.
Fortunately, the fact that the art establishment here had little time for Feibusch was compensated for by the understanding displayed by architects and churchmen. Even when failing eyesight induced him to turn to sculpture, patronage was forthcoming. That recognition was justified is proved by his figure of Christ, in Ely Cathedral, and his St John the Baptist, in St John's Wood Church.
Feibusch's impressive technical abilities as a mural and easel painter, sculptor, and lithographer, above all with his The Revelation of St John series, published in 1946, were not surprising. Few 20th century artists were better trained, or had a wider curiosity.
He was educated at the Universities of Frankfurt and Munich, and in 1916-18 served in the German army on the Russian front before going on to the Berlin Academy. Then followed studies in Paris, and in Florence and Rome. Feibusch loved music and poetry, while in his studio in St John's Wood many books upon art jostled for space with canvases, drawings and sculptures.
All Feibusch's work was based on drawing. Even in his nineties, he was a prolific draughtsman. Yet a crucial point in his career came in 1938, not long after his arrival in England, when he was asked to do a mural (which no longer exists) in a Methodist chapel in Collier's Wood, in London. Feibusch was paid only pounds 50 and when he mounted the scaffolding he felt sick. He had vertigo. He was saved by a workman who noticed his plight and told him of a medicine his wife used before going to the dentist. Feibusch acquired the pills but became confident and did not need them again.
A man who was to have a profound impact on Feibusch's career was the great George Bell, Bishop of Chichester. When the artist was working in the chapel of the Bishop's Palace in Chichester, he knocked a tin of paint off the scaffolding just as Bell was opening the door, Bell, seeing what had happened, silently withdrew.
SOON after the second world war, the commissions came flooding in. He was successful not only in ancient buildings, such as St Ethelburga's, in the City of London, where his murals were damaged in the 1993 IRA bombing, but also in modern churches where he worked closely with the architects.
Feibusch's best murals such as his Baptism in Chichester Cathedral, his early Pilgrim's Progress in St Elizabeth's in Eastbourne, or later works such as those in St Wilfred's in Brighton and the Festival of Britain Church of St John's, Waterloo Road, London, show both his training and his love of the art of the past. Feibusch's style was, however, idiosyncratic. In 1954 Bishop Bell intervened in Goring when he granted a faculty for Feibusch's Christ In Glory, after the local advisory committee had objected to the preliminary drawings.
Feibusch painted secular subjects in the Town Hall at Dudley, and he was assured both in a very large space and on a modest scale. His murals in the Civic Centre at Newport, Monmouthshire, are one of the most ambitious 20th century decorative cycles in Britain. Yet his decoration in Canon C B Mortlock's home, in the City, was just as successful.
When it appeared in 1946, Feibusch's book Mural Painting was influential. And towards the end of his life young artists and critics again became interested in Feibusch's achievement. At the very end, this was assured. Ten days before his death, a party to celebrate his upcoming 100th birthday was held at the Royal College of Art. It was announced that the entire contents of Feibusch's studio will be presented to the Pallant House Gallery and will be on view. Feibusch will have a major body of work permanently available to the public. He will be more surely remembered than many who received much greater appreciation during their lifetime.
His wife Sidonie, whom he married in 1935, died in 1963.
Hans Feibusch , artist, born August 15, 1898 died July 18 1998
The Times obituary 21 July 1998
Hans Feibusch, muralist and sculptor, died on July 18 aged 99. He was born August 15, 1898.
Hans Feibusch was a muralist and latterly a sculptor with an unfailing sense of the need of a wall painting or a piece of sculpture to respect the surrounding architecture. Probably he will be chiefly remembered for his mural painting in English churches - the middle of the 20th century seeing the full flowering of his art.
Born to Jewish parents in Frankfurt under the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hans Feibusch served with the German Army in Russia during the First World War and, after a false start in medicine, began his art studies under Carl Hofer in Berlin. Gaining the Rome prize, he went to Italy, and then studies in Paris with Andre Lhote.
In 1930 he won the Prussian State Prize for painting, but then suffered under Hitler's ban (seeing his work destroyed) and fled to England. Here he married Sidonie Gestetner (herself born and educated in England), who, he fondly recalled, "controlled my tendency to use the wrong prepositions".
Welcome almost as soon as he came to England by the London Group, he soon established himself with his murals in churches. The first of these, a Footwashing in 1938 in Colliers Wood Methodist Church, was brought to the notice of George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, by Kenneth Clark: a friendship grew, the victim of the European catastrophe and the statesman bishop with a cultured understanding of Germany having much in common.
Bell helped Feibusch towards his early commission for murals in Anglican places of worship. Notable examples are in St Wilfred's Brigton (1941), Iden Parish Church (1950), Chichester Cathedral (1951, recently renewed), Goring by-Sea (1954), Preston Parich Church (1956), St Alban's Holborn (1956) and the West London Synagogue (1973). By no mean all his commissions were for churches and synagogues. Civic examples included Dudley Tower Hall and Newport Civic Centre, Gwent, and domestic settings were provided by James Laver and Canon C.B. Mortlock.
Architects who counted themselves fortunate to be collaborating with a painter who always worked "with the building" were Harold Gibbsons, Thomas F. Ford, E.Maxwell Fry, H. S. Goodhart-Rendel and Sir Charles Reilly.
The religious painting of Hans Feibusch exhibit brilliant colour and a composition with is generally suave and classical, often lyrical: he was a man who valued warmth and passions in religion, knew how to project joy and sorrow in his painting, sorrow for European conflict being for many decades a keenly felt emotion (thus a Nailing of Christ of 1985 is titled Hommage a Popiusko).
A sudden less of sign in 1970 (from which he was to make a partial recovery) led Feibusch into the more tactile art of sculpture. Here again the works related beautifully to the architecture of, for example, Ely Cathedral (Christus, 1981), and St. Alban's Holborn (Christ Raised form the Dead, 1985).
Delightful in conversation, Feibusch had a gentle and retiring nature, but kept up a stern routine of daily studio work until six months before his death. His own country made amends, conferring on him in 1967 the German Cross of the Order of Merit (1st class), and for his 90th birthday his native Frankfurt honored him with a substantives retrospective exhibition. In the same year he received the Insignia of a Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit, bestowed by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In his last years he is though to have been the sole survivor of Hitler's infamous Entartete Kunst exhibition. A substantial retrospective, 1996 The Heat of Vision, toured this country in 1995-6, beginning at Chichester.
His devoted work for churches in Britain was recognised in 1985 when Dr Robert Runcie, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, conferred on him Lambeth D.Ltt "in recognition of his services in promoting the Association of Artist and the Church through his work as painter, sculptor and writer". In the last capacity Hans Feibusch sounded a still much-needed call for quality in church commission in his Mural Painting (1946): "It is for the leaders of the Church to commission the best artist, the real representatives of our time, to give them intelligent guidance, and to have sufficient confidence in their artistic and human qualify to give them free play".
In the early 1990s Feibusch formally left the Church of England, returning to his Jewish roots. His wife Sidonie died in 1963, and there were no children of the marriage.