Fedor Ganz Collection
Scope and Content Note
The collection contains documents, correspondence, unpublished writings, sketches, photos, and various flyers, postcards, posters, and similar printed materials advertising artistic, literary, and political exhibitions, events, and happenings. A substantial amount of family documents are also included; some of these may have been amassed for research into a larger literary work entitled Inventar vor dem Brand which was loosely inspired by the life of his mother, Elsbeth Klemperer. This work was still incomplete at the time of his death, but a large manuscript draft is present in the collection. Similarly, some of the political flyers and postcards, which date to the era of World War I, may have belonged to his parents. The extended family documents also include handbills for operas and theatrical works performed in 1870.
Dates
- 1870-1984
Creator
- Ganz, Fedor, 1910- (Person)
Language of Materials
This collection is in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers.
Access Information
Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.
Use Restrictions
There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more information, contact:
Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
email: lbaeck@lbi.cjh.org
Biographical Note
Fedor Ganz was a writer and a painter, born in Hamburg in 1910, raised in Geneva, Switzerland, and educated in France at the Sorbonne. From the 1930s until his death in 1983, Ganz was active both politically and artistically, exhibiting his artwork (mostly paintings) and publishing poetry and political essays in Spanish, French, and German. He lived a relatively itinerant lifestyle, and from his university days onwards traveled extensively between South America, Europe, and North America. At least part of the reason for this extensive travel may be traced to translation work, which he performed for the United Nations and other diplomatic and cultural organizations. His "Ensayo marxista de la historia de Espana" ( Marxist essay on the history of Spain ), first published in 1934, won favorable notices, and Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral wrote the preface to one of his volumes of poetry. He had entered Surrealist and Dadaist literary circles as a young man in Paris, and he exhibited his paintings throughout his life. During the 1960s he reclaimed German citizenship; Fedor Ganz died in Paris in December 1983.
Extent
0.75 Linear Feet
Abstract
The collection contains documents, correspondence, unpublished writings, sketches, photos, and various flyers, postcards, posters, and a substantial amount of family documents.
Other Finding Aid
An inventory is available in folder 1, with an account of Ganz's death and the circumstances of donation.
Separated material
Some photographs have been removed to the Photograph Collection.
Clippings have been removed to the Fedor Ganz Clippings Collection, AR 7238 C.
The following published books were removed to the LBI Library collection on 2010 June 25:
- Ensayo marxista de la historia de Espania
- Entre ser y no ser
- Septieme Demeure y les delices de Capoue
- L'Ingenue
- Alianza de Intelectuales Antifascistas (Spain)
- Argentina
- Black-and-white photographs
- Brazil
- Clippings (information artifacts)
- Correspondence
- Duque, Aquilino, 1931-
- Fuchs family
- Fuchs, Ignaz, 1824-1890
- Ganz family
- Ganz, Albert, 1864-1936
- Ganz, Elsbeth Rosalie, 1874-
- Ganz, Fedor, 1910-
- Geneva (Switzerland)
- Hamburg (Germany)
- Henein, Georges, 1914-1973
- International Congress of Writers for the Defence of Culture
- Jewish authors
- Klemperer family
- London (England)
- Manuscripts (documents)
- New York (N.Y.)
- Painters
- Paris (France)
- Peru
- Poems
- Poets
- Positano (Italy)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Programs (documents)
- Roditi, Edouard
- Scrapbooks
- Spain -- History -- Civil War, 1936-1939
- Translators
- United Nations
- Vital statistics records
- Title
- Guide to the Fedor Ganz Collection, 1870-1984 AR 7238
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by LBI Staff and Timothy Ryan Mendenhall
- Date
- © 2009
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Revision Statements
- November 28, 2011 : Links to digital objects added in Container List.
Repository Details
Part of the Leo Baeck Institute Repository
