Herbert Seiler
Herbert Seiler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 10, 1928 |
| Died | March 7, 2008 (aged 79) |
| Nationality | Austrian/Czech |
| Citizenship | German & Honorary Ethiopian Citizenship |
| Occupation |
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| Spouse(s) | Marion E. Hill |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | www |
Herbert Seiler (1928 – March 7, 2008) was a sculptor, painter, and teacher born in Budweis, Czechoslovakia. He trained under the Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzù in Salzburg and lived and worked in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 1956 to 1985. He later lived in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and on Paros, Greece.
Early life and education
Seiler was born in 1928 in Budweis, Czechoslovakia, now České Budějovice. From 1934 to 1940 he was known on the streets of Budweis for sculpting molds and hearts from soap.
In 1943, at age 14, he and his school grade were kidnapped and forced into youth camps. In 1945 he refused to serve the Nazi regime, surrendered to the Soviet army, and later escaped from a Soviet prison camp.
He began formal study at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Linz, Austria, in 1946 and graduated in 1950. From 1951 to 1953 he studied at the Kunstschule in Salzburg and finished under Giacomo Manzù in 1953. An early sculpture is a fountain on the Promenade in Linz.
Ethiopia, 1956–1985
In 1954 he left Austria by motorcycle and traveled through Africa. He settled in Addis Ababa in 1956. The journey from Austria is described by his family as lasting about seven months. He remained for 28 years, until 1985, and taught sculpture for sixteen years at the fine art school in Addis Ababa, now the Allé School of Fine Arts and Design at Addis Ababa University.
Ethiopian traditional art had centered on painting. Seiler’s teaching brought new attention to sculpture. He received government and private commissions: statues, busts, and reliefs in bronze and marble; over-life-size lions; murals; mosaics; stamp designs; and stage decor. In the early 1960s he developed a technique for using fiberglass in sculpture. His work ranges from figurative sculpture to semi-abstract metal and fiberglass forms, many of them untitled.
He had joint and one-man shows in Austria, Washington, D.C., Hamburg, Berlin, Hong Kong, Paris, and Addis Ababa.
Emperor Haile Selassie
Emperor Haile Selassie (1892–1975) was the last emperor of Ethiopia, crowned in 1930. The Rastafari faith, which arose in Jamaica in the 1930s, takes his title Ras Tafari and holds him as divine. Seiler’s connection is the work he made for the emperor in Ethiopia, not Rastafari religious art.
Emperor Haile Selassie presented Seiler with a gold medal. Seiler carved a bust of the emperor, unveiled at the art school in Addis Ababa and now at the National Museum of Ethiopia. A bronze of the emperor was commissioned for the Imperial Bodyguard. He made three other sculptures of the emperor in bronze and stone for public buildings in Ethiopia.
He designed two sets of Ethiopian stamps bearing the emperor’s portrait. One marked the 30th anniversary of the coronation in November 1960: five stamps, from 10 cents to 1 dollar, with the portrait and the Imperial Crown. The other marked the 20th anniversary of Ethiopia’s liberation from Italian occupation: three stamps with a map of Ethiopia, the portrait, and an olive branch. A further stamp design mentioned in his memoir was never issued.
Other public work
- Stone lions at the entrance of the National Palace in Addis Ababa, with reliefs referring to the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963.
- Six metal lions, 4 meters tall on 2-meter pedestals, made for Emperor Haile Selassie’s return from a state visit.
- A stone relief for the first Organisation of African Unity meeting in 1963, displayed at the School of Fine Arts, and painted portraits of visiting heads of state, 8 by 5 meters, for the welcome arches of those meetings.
- An 80-meter relief for a bank in Addis Ababa, stage backdrops up to 12 by 8 meters for the national theatre, a stone mosaic for a Coptic church near Lake Tana, and advertising art for Ethiopian Airlines.
- The artwork for the Ethiopian pavilions at Expo 67 in Montreal and Expo 70 in Osaka, including the Axum obelisks sculpted for Expo 67.
- A stone sculpture of an Arusi girl, given to the widow of the Duke of Harar and now at the National Museum.
- “Seated Woman,” a bronze outside Fagin Hall at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
St. Thomas and Paros
Political unrest forced him to leave Ethiopia in 1985. He settled that year in St. Thomas with his wife and three children, and in 1989 he moved to Paros. From 1990 to 1996 his work shifted. Later paintings made in St. Thomas and on Paros share the light, color, and broken brushwork associated with Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. He also painted copies after Claude Monet’s water lilies, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Red Skiff” and “Picking Flowers,” Edgar Degas’s ballerinas, pictures after Vincent van Gogh, and pictures after Henri Matisse. “Red Skiff” is after Renoir, not Monet.
He painted many abstracts. He made metal works from recycled scrap metal and from instruments, including a sculpture of Africa built from a typewriter. While visiting his son Christopher Seiler in Colorado after the birth of Christopher’s son, Colt Loveland Seiler, he painted horses. “Colorado Snow” is a snow landscape from that family visit.
Personal life
In 1961 he married Marion E. Hill. Their children are Herbert Seiler (born 1963), Christopher Seiler (born 1965), and Marie Seiler (born 1970).
On Paros in 1991 he wrote a first book. He also wrote a memoir of his Ethiopian years, in his own English. That memoir is unpublished and is held by the family. In 2022 the family established The Seiler Legacy to preserve the work.
On March 7, 2008, he took his own life. He had lived on Paros since 1989. The site does not name the place of death, so Paros should appear as the place of death only if the family confirms it.