28 Facts About Paul Nietsche

Paul Nietsche was a Ukrainian artist and teacher who emigrated to Ulster in 1936 where he became a central figure on the Belfast artistic and literary scenes between the 1930s and his death in 1950.

Paul Felix Franz Nietsche was born to German parents in Kiev in Ukraine on 17 June 1885.

Paul Nietsche studied art at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Odessa under Gennadiy Ladyzhensky and Kiriak Kostandi.

Paul Nietsche then moved to Paris where he befriended the sculptor Auguste Rodin and showed at the Salon of 1912.

Paul Nietsche returned to Odessa in 1914 where he remained until the end of World War I, when he relocated to Berlin to be with his family.

Whilst living in Berlin Paul Nietsche befriended a post-graduate student and later a lecturer in English at the University of Leipzig, the Dubliner Michael O'Brien.

When O'Brien moved to Queens University Belfast as a lecturer in Celtic Studies in 1926, Paul Nietsche was invited to visit Belfast where he was to show five paintings with the Ulster Arts Club in the same year.

Between 1926 and 1934 Paul Nietsche travelled extensively throughout Europe supported through exhibitions and picture sales.

Paul Nietsche painted outside Dubrovnik in 1928; Avignon, Castlewellan, and Switzerland in 1931; Cornwall and Berlin in 1933; and revisited both Cornwall and the South of France in the following year.

In 1929 Paul Nietsche held an exhibition of paintings at Michael O'Brien's home at 411 Lisburn Road, Belfast.

Paul Nietsche exhibited just once at the Royal Hibernian Academy, in 1930.

In 1936 Paul Nietsche travelled extensively throughout the US and Canada, and afterwards returned to work in Devon and Cornwall before his onward journey to Belfast.

At the invitation of Major R G Heyn, Paul Nietsche's work debuted in Canada in 1936, with an exhibition at the Continental Galleries of Fine Art in Montreal.

Paul Nietsche showed with John Hunter and George MacCann at Belfast's Magee Gallery in 1938, with a further solo display at the same venue in 1939.

Paul Nietsche applied to be a British citizen in 1938 from an address at 9 Finaghy Park Central in south Belfast.

In 1943 Paul Nietsche showed alongside Stanley Prosser, Seamus Stoupe, and Newton Penprase in the annual Ulster Arts Club exhibition at the Belfast Municipal Gallery.

Twenty-four of the works from the CEMA collection, including Paul Nietsche's painting, were later presented at their Donegall Place gallery in 1954.

Paul Nietsche showed at the CEMA Gallery in Belfast in 1947,1948, and in 1949.

Paul Nietsche was fluent in Russian, French, German and English.

Paul Nietsche parodied local attitudes to modern art in a 1948 play and in 1949 he contributed one poem, A Vision, to the shortlived Ulster poetry journal Rann established by his old friend Barbara Hunter and Roy McFadden in the previous year.

Paul Nietsche's students included Jean Osborne, and Markey Robinson whom he took under his wing, teaching him technique and introducing Robinson to the influential art collector Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl.

Paul Nietsche's eccentricities extended to his studio where the poet Roy McFadden says he "flaunted a huge ceramic penis on the wall".

Paul Nietsche rose late in the day and worked long into the night, often retiring just before sunrise.

Paul Nietsche spent some time in Belfast City Hospital in June 1948 and later convalesced at the Crawfordsburn Inn as a guest of a friend.

Paul Nietsche's landscapes tend to be dark, his still lifes and flower paintings more colourful.

Paul Nietsche died in Belfast City Hospital on 4 October 1950, after falling ill at his studio four days earlier whilst preparing work for exhibition in London and Dublin.

Paul Nietsche's friends organised a memorial exhibition of his works in the Ulster Farmers' Union Hall in Belfast in 1952 for which Nietsche's brother Eugene made his first visit to Belfast.

Jack Loudan opened the exhibition and expressed his desire to see Paul Nietsche commanding his own section in the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery.