Sculptor, born Gertrude Schechner on 26 August 1904 in Znaim, Moravia (now Znojmo, Czech Republic). Her family, who were Jewish, expected her to follow her father into medicine but, passionate about the arts, she decided instead to study music. By the late 1930s she was married to the Jewish businessman, Georg Bunzl, and living in Vienna. In 1938, following Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria, the couple had no choice but to leave the country, arriving in England that same year. In the 1939 England and Wales Register, Bunzl is logged as a housewife (occupation: ‘unpaid domestic duties’) and her husband a company director. Not until the 1950s did she take formal instruction as a sculptor, enrolling in 1958 at Chelsea School of Art – where she was taught by Bernard Meadows – and subsequently attending St Martin’s School of Art. In addition to participating in group exhibitions, Bunzl had a number of solo exhibitions: in London in 1966, 1972 and 1972; at Westcott Art Centre, Dorking, Surrey, in 1967; and in Vienna in 1968. According to Alfons Rosenberg (AJR Information, June 1971), Bunzl considered her bronze figure, Oedipus Rex, her ‘master work’. Installed in front of the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1984 (since relocated to the Minerva Theatre patio, opposite), it was the gift of Mrs Reidl, the sculptor’s sister-in-law. Bunzl’s inspiration for the work was a performance of Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus Rex’ which she had seen in Athens. According to the Benezit Dictionary, other noteworthy sculptures by Bunzl include a Head of Moses (inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s opera, Moses and Aaron) and Listening to Music, a sculpture dedicated to the composer, Gustav Mahler. Bunzl died in a hospital near her home in Wimbledon on 4 December 1982.
Archival sources: Ancestry: (i) 1939 England and Wales Register … Surrey. Wimbledon …, (ii) United Kingdom, World War II Alien Internees, 1939–1945 … Internees at Liberty in UK, 1939–1942 …, (iii) England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index … 1982. Q4 …, (iv) England and Wales National Probate Calendar … 1983.
Bibliography: AJR Information: (i) vol. XXVI, no. 6, June 1971, p. 9, (ii) vol. XXXIX, no. 7, July 1984, p. 11; Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford, 2006; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, p. 110.
Terry Cavanagh, February 2025