SCHARF, THEO (1899-1987)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Dutch Kitchen" (c.1920) 
oil on canvas
63 x 54cm
signed lower left
*private collection, Melbourne
 
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Scharf is a forgotten Australian-German Child Prodigy, printmaker & Nazi Artist. He  was born in Melbourne, in 1899 to German immigrant parents who soon realized his precocious talent for painting. By his early teens, he was a child prodigy, exhibiting paintings & prints throughout Melbourne. He is immortalized in the iconic "Boy with a Palette" (1911) by Violet Teague. In 1914, following a major retrospective in Melbourne & a marriage breakup Olive & her son, Theo, relocated to Munich Theo enlisted at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and soon became an accomplished printmaker. His famous series "Night in a City" comprising of 20 etchings showing the hustle & bustle of city life in Germany in the 1920s, is still revered today. However, by 1932, Scharf joined the National Socialist party & began illustrating Nazi Party Publications in 1933. He became a member of the Storm Division & was profiled by Nazi propaganda newspapers. By 1937, he became a teacher at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts & submitted work to the Great German Art Exhibition. In 1942, he was enlisted in the Propaganda Kompanie under Supreme Command & Hitler, & then in 1943 was appointed, Lance Corporal of the 'Staff of Pictorial Artists' in the Luftwaffe. In 1944, his Munich Studio was destroyed in bomb raids, and in 1945, he spent two months in a POW Camp. After being repatriated to Australia in 1950, he became an art instructor in Box Hill, & won several local competitions. In 1956, he returned to Munich to receive a Government pension. His etchings are represented in major collections, such as the AGNSW & NGV, however, his paintings are unprecedented, with this the only example resurfacing from this period!!