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H. V. Meyerowitz
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H. V. Meyerowitz
Herbert Vladimir Meyerowitz (1900 in Saint Petersburg – 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.
Meyerowitz's father was a wealthy German businessman and his mother a Russian pianist who had studied with Arthur Rubinstein.
At the time of the Russian Revolution of 1905, 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 the First World War broke out in 1914 and, because of their German nationality, they were interned at Ekaterinburg. 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 Kunstgewerbeschule. He became an admirer of the educational theories of Franz Cižek.
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 and opened a school of art.
In 1935, he made a study of the crafts in Basutoland (now Lesotho), 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, Rhodesia. 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".
The Rev. H. M. Grace, the Principal of Achimota College in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), 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.
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H. V. Meyerowitz
Herbert Vladimir Meyerowitz (1900 in Saint Petersburg – 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.
Meyerowitz's father was a wealthy German businessman and his mother a Russian pianist who had studied with Arthur Rubinstein.
At the time of the Russian Revolution of 1905, 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 the First World War broke out in 1914 and, because of their German nationality, they were interned at Ekaterinburg. 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 Kunstgewerbeschule. He became an admirer of the educational theories of Franz Cižek.
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 and opened a school of art.
In 1935, he made a study of the crafts in Basutoland (now Lesotho), 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, Rhodesia. 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".
The Rev. H. M. Grace, the Principal of Achimota College in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), 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.