Else Fürst
25 June 1873 | Leipzig – 19 April 1943 | Theresienstadt Sculptor & medallistHelene Julia Fürst
1877 | Leipzig – 1944 | Auschwitz
Violinist (no further public data available)
Else and Helene Fürst’s parents were the paediatrician and gynaecologist Dr Jacob Paul Livius Fürst and their mother Henriette Anna, née Scheikevich. The family belonged to the Jewish middle class. Their Jewish grandfather, Julius Fürst, had been one of the first Jewish scholars to hold a professorship at the University of Leipzig. He maintained contacts with Karl August Varnhagen von Ense and his wife Rahel Varnhagen, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Henriette Herz and others.
Else Fürst grew up in Leipzig with her sister Helene and received her initial artistic training there before moving to Berlin at around the age of twenty. There she studied in the studio of the sculptor Adolph Jahn and, from the mid-1890s, at the Académie Julian in Paris under Denis Puech. She established herself over the years as a sculptor and medallist and, for a time, ran her own studio on Kurfürstendamm. She was one of the few female artists to contribute to the series of commemorative coins issued during the First World War. Her small sculptures were distributed by Berlin foundries; she was also represented at national exhibitions and at the Paris Salons in 1913 and 1914.
Although Berlin was the centre of her life, Else Fürst remained closely connected to Leipzig. In August 1916, Else Fürst wrote to her client, the director of the Berlin Numismatic Cabinet, with the following words:
“I must travel to Leipzig again sometime in September, and I would be grateful if I could take a cast of the Henriette Goldschmidt medal with me by around the middle of the month. The elderly lady is 91 years old, and I would very much like her to live to see herself depicted on the medal.”
Like her sister Helene, Else Fürst remained unmarried; both retained their Jewish faith throughout their lives. In 1939, they were forced to move into a so-called ‘Jewish flat’ and were subjected to forced labour. On 17 March 1943, Else Fürst was deported to Theresienstadt, where she was murdered in April 1943. Her sister, the solo violinist Helene Julia Fürst, was murdered in Auschwitz in May 1944.
NOTE: *) Due to the format of the exhibition, the biographical details given above have necessarily been abridged. Visitors to the exhibition can read a more detailed version of the biographical information in the exhibition folders provided. The entire, very extensive project includes further biographies, additional content and research … is in progress – also online…