Arthur Fleischmann (1896–1990)

Sculptor, painter and ceramicist. Born in Bratislava, he obtained a medical degree at Prague University in 1921, but then went on to study sculpture, under Jan Stursa in Prague, and then under Josef Müllner at the Vienna Academy. During the 1930s, in Vienna, he executed decorative sculpture for social housing and a war memorial commemorating Austro- Hungarian prisoners in the First World War (1934), for the Russian Church. In 1937 he travelled to South Africa, and from there went on in 1939 to the island of Bali, where he was captivated by and recorded in sculpture and photography many aspects of local life. When the Japanese invaded Bali, Fleischmann left for Australia, where, during the war years, he participated in the activities of the Merioola group. From 1948 until the end of his life, Fleischmann lived and worked in London. In the 1920s and 1930s he had produced church art, much of it in glazed ceramic. Following his conversion to Catholicism during his stay in Bali, religious sculpture became a major strand in his work. In London he pioneered the use of Perspex as a sculptural material, first producing figurative carvings, then layering coloured or uncoloured Perspex to create abstract fountain sculptures, using artificial light. Fleischmann contributed sculpture to the Festival of Britain (1951), and to World exhibitions at Brussels (1958), Seattle (1962) and Osaka (1970). His last work was a fountain entitled Homage to the Discovery of DNA, unveiled in the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (1990). His public sculpture in the United Kingdom includes the Miranda Memorial Fountain, Automotive Products Ltd, Tachbrook Road, Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire (1951; bronze figure stolen 2001); St Francis (bronze figure), The Friary, junction of Francis Street and Willow Place, London (1961); Christ of the Sacred Heart (bronze figure), exterior niche on the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, Horseferry Road, London (1964); the Anderton Mining Monument (‘The Miner’), St Helens, Merseyside (1964); and the Silver Jubilee Crystal Crown (relief in Perspex), Tower Hotel, Tower Hamlets, London (1977).

Bibliography: Arthur Fleischmann. A Centennial Celebration 1896-1990, Mestske Museum, Bratislava, 1996; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Leicestershire and Rutland, Liverpool, 2000, pp. 60, 61, 365–66; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. xx, 179, 182–83, G.T. Noszlopy, Public Sculpture of Warwickshire, Coventry & Solihull, Liverpool, 2003, pp. xxii, 98–99; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. xliii, 40–41, 80–81, 363, 364, 365, 446.

Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011; revised, Terry Cavanagh, November 2024