Greta Loebl Collection

Greta Loebl was born on July 28th 1917 in Vienna (Austria), where she spent her early years. At the age of 18 she followed in her father’s steps by becoming a master goldsmith. The Nazi occupation forced her to leave the country in September 1938 along with her future husband Oscar Schreyer. The young couple fled via Germany to France and remained in Paris until their visa application to the U.S. was approved. Since Greta Loebl did not possess a valid identity card the couple couldn't get officially married until they arrived in the U.S. in March 1939. From 1941 onwards the couple strove to acquire visas for their parents, but did not succeed: They were all deported to different concentration camps. Greta Loebl's parents were first deported to Terezin; after her husband's death, Irene Loebl was sent to Auschwitz. Chaim and Pessie Schreyer were deported to Izbica (Poland).

Greta Loebl Schreyer started working as a jewelry designer, before developing into a painter. Art helped her cope with difficult inner feelings towards her parent’s fate and early melancholic memories of her Austrian home. Her first solo exhibition took place in the United States in 1956. During the following years the painter held many exhibitions all over the United States. After Oscar Schreyer's death, Greta married her cousin Eugen Loebl, a well-known economist, and consequently reassumed her maiden name, now also her married name. In 1987, the same year her second husband passed away, she returned to Austria for the first time on purpose of her first European exhibition at Schloss Belvedere, Vienna. Later on her art has widely shown in several countries worldwide, such as in Canada, the Czech Republic, Austria, Israel and in the United States. Greta Loebl passed away on October 3rd 2005, survived by her two children and four grandchildren.