7 facts about Hilda Goldwag

Hilda Goldwag (28 April 1912 – 28 January 2008) was an player whose works included paintings, book illustrations and billboard designs. She was born in Austria but moved to Scotland in 1939 to leave suddenly the Nazis and many of her paintings are of enthusiasm and buildings in Glasgow.

One of three children, Goldwag was raised primarily by her mother after her artist father, Moses Leopold Goldwag, died taking into account she was nine years old. She attended Anna Schantruch Art Classes in Vienna and was one of a number of pupils agreed to paint murals for the Sandleitener Kindergarten. Despite the Nazi Anschluss of Austria in March 1938, she graduated from the Staatliche Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna well ahead in 1938. Goldwag moved to Scotland, as a refugee, in March 1939 to break out persecution by the Nazis. Her relatives was due to follow her six months later, but World War II was declared the day they acknowledged their travel permits, causing them to be trapped in Austria. They were taken to a raptness camp and perished during The Holocaust. Her hurting at the loss of six associates members can be felt in much of Goldwag’s art.

Goldwag met her lifelong friend, and fellow refugee, Cecile Schwarzschild (1915–1998) in Edinburgh in 1939 at the Quaker Meeting House. They relocated to Glasgow when combat broke out to accept up war con at McGlashlan’s Engineering Works. From 1945 to 1955, Goldwag was the head designer at the textile company Friedlanders, work which included designing scarves for Marks & Spencer. She furthermore undertook freelance illustration proceed for the publishers Collins. She illustrated the 1955 edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verse. From 1962 to 1975 Goldwag worked part-time as a hospital occupational therapist though continuing to paint. Although Goldwag painted several portraits of Schwarzschild from the early 1950s onwards, she did not become a full-time painter until retirement. Godwag painted landscapes and industrial buildings, often vigorous outdoors bearing in mind oil upon canvas and as well as painted flowers and portraits. During the 1980s, Goldwag had a number of exhibitions and was an active devotee of several artist societies, notably the Glasgow Society of Women Artists and the Scottish Society of Women Artists. Examples of her paintings are held by the Ben Uri Gallery in London, by Strathclyde University and by the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre.