12009

Theodore Bruno Kittel and Friedrich Wilhelm Braune 1918

Seated at a table playing chess, Kittel looking down at the board, his left hand to his chin, Braune in quarter profile with his back to the viewer, smoking a pipe

Charcoal and pencil on paper, (10 ¼ x 14 ¼ in.)

Inscribed lower right:  P.A. de L. / 1918 III / Islington   

Inscribed verso by the artist:  To T.B. Kittel Esq. 1918 III Islington / in rememberance of our mutual sufferings

Private Collection

On 7 November 1917 de László was moved from Brixton Prison to the Camp for Interned Enemy Aliens at the Cornwallis Road Institution, also referred to as Islington Internment Camp. The camp housed up to 750 German and Austro-Hungarian nationals at any one time. Though an improvement on Brixton, conditions at the camp, a former Victorian workhouse, were difficult and the artist’s health declined.

De László and the two subjects of this drawing, Theodore Bruno Kittel (1856–1923) and Friedrich Wilhelm Braune (1880–1950), were kept in D Block. On 28 December 1917 they wrote to the Home Office in an effort to improve the situation for themselves and their visiting families. It was a heartfelt plea from professional men finding themselves in the most difficult of circumstances on account of their place of birth. Permission was denied.

We the undersigned internees have the honour to request you to grant permission to us to receive the visits of members of our families in our private rooms during the winter months. The rooms at the disposal for visits are during these months – especially when there is a north or east wind – very cold and draughty and hardly fit for women and children to stay in, some of the women well advanced in years and some of the children of tender age. There is, however, an even more cogent reason for our request. The strain of the long internment of the greater number of us is having a very adverse effect on the health of our families and ourselves.^[1] 

Dr Maurice Craig examined de László after three months internment and noted: “I saw this patient on the 4 Feby 1918. I find him in a restless condition; he is evidently getting loss of power of concentration, sleep is becoming defective; his circulation is bad; the pulse is slow and low-tensioned, and he is losing weight. The strain of the last few months has evidently told & is telling on him, and if this restlessness continues, there is a grave danger of his having a mental breakdown.”^[2] 

To de László’s great relief, he once again had access to his artistic materials in Islington and drew or painted in watercolour some twenty-one works in the six-month period he was there [see Cat. 25]. Kittel, seen here with chin resting in his hand and Braune opposite, were both German by birth and a friendship developed between the three men. They posed for portrait drawings which de László kept for the rest of his life as a reminder of their friendship in this dark period. After the war, he had reproductions made and presented them to Kittel and Braune.

Kittel was owner of Kittel & Company Ltd. at 5 Fenchurch Street, London, which traded primarily in iron, steel and coal. He settled in England in the early 1880s and became naturalised in 1889. His friendship with de László continues between their families to the present day.    

Lucy identified Braune in a letter to her son Paul on January 1918: “I saw Daddy yesterday. He was looking better, there is no chance yet of his getting free yet. He plays chess every day with a young lawyer, who comes to his room at about 7 o clock.”^[3] De László inscribed the drawing he kept of him smoking a pipe “my chess master.” Braune’s London practice covered commercial, family law and conveyancing and, like so many foreign nationals, he lost his livelihood at the outbreak of the war. His wife supported the family by teaching the violin and playing in cinemas.  

De László remained interned at Islington until he suffered a complete physical and mental breakdown and was hospitalised and then moved to a nursing home on 14 May 1918.  

LITERATURE

•Hart-Davis, Duff, in collaboration with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, De László: His Life and Art, Yale University Press, 2010, p. 161, ill. 90

•Hart-Davis, Duff, László Fülöp élete és festészete [Philip de László's Life and Painting], Corvina, Budapest, 2019, ill. 115

KF 2024