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1935, Travelling to Rio...
At various times my good fortune has provided events which few women have experienced. One was my trip in the Graf Zeppelin to Brazil. It was in 1935 , during Hitler’s time. Bela (note: her husband) was in Rio, and I had to find some way of getting there. Ships and I had never agreed. Dramomine, then the sovereign remedy for seasickness, did not help at all. The ocean trip to Rio de Janeiro would take twenty-one days, and I feared that my corpse would arrive instead of myself. In Gyor my family and I sought another possibility. It came to a?choice between a submarine and a dirigible, the Graf Zeppelin. Needless to say, I chose the Zeppelin. Departure was from Friedrichshafen, where large signs were seen in streets, hotels, restaurants: “Entrance prohibited to dogs and Jews”. How can the German people have accepted such ideas? Take off in the Zeppelin was exceedingly simple. The big balloon was held down by sandbags Upon loosening the ropes, the balloon, which consisted of silk bags filled with hydrogen, floated upwards. It was like a great primitive but functional toy. |
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We had heard that the Zeppelin family was anti-Nazi. Certainly the swastika was not to be seen anywhere (note: actually, by 1935 it was prominently displayed on the tail of the airship). Captain Lehman treated me with the greatest consideration and courtesy. I was the only woman on board, and ate at the captain’s table. The passengers’ quarters were in the gondola, which hung below the balloon. Each cabin contained a double bunk. Mine I of course had to myself, and for this privilege the company lost fifteen hundred dollars or marks, I forget which. There was a single wash basin for all, a single lavatory. Where the crew slept was in the balloon ; on one side a bed, on the other the same weight in provisions. The Zeppelin’s equilibrium was very nicely calculated. A metal strip with ropes on either side ran the length of the ballon for crew members to move from one end to the other to make adjustments. So narrow was the strip that only a single step at a time was possible, holding on to the ropes, so as not to lose balance and fall into the depths of the balloon, I choked with fright the day the captain, after pointing out the interior of the ballon, remarked very courteously, “After you, Madam.” Somehow I reached the end of the strip.
The room where I stayed during the day had six little tables, five for the passengers and one for the captain. Crossing the Atlantic to America was deeply exciting for me but for some of the passengers it was misery. Except for myself, they were all Brazilians. Smoking was forbidden, and one of the men became so desperate that upon landing, he put two cigarettes in his mouth at once and smoked both simultaneously.
Our first stop was at Pernambuco, a city of narrow streets and many-colored houses, a lively place with much movement of people. On our entering Rio’s sky, atmospheric conditions were bad, and we had to float overhead for some hours. This gave us a unique opportunity to see the fabulous city from the air. Sugar Loaf Hill, the Corcovado, the bays, the jungle with its impenetrable vegetation, were all below us. |
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Bela was waiting impatiently, but upon my leaving the Zeppelin, I was assaulted by newspapermen wishing to greet the “brave woman” who had dared to travel in the balloon. I certainly did not disillusion them by revealing that my reason had been cowardice - not courage.Rio de Janeiro is truly a unique city, beautiful, fascinating, not only for its rare geographical situation, but also for the exotic variety of its population. Generally I went out early in the morning, when Bela left for work and before the heat had risen, returning with many paintings and drawings. Where did I find such diversity of models? I was asked. - “Up on the hilltops, in the favelas ,” ( the slum areas), I answered. But how did I dare to go there? Everyone was astonished, having the same bad opinion of the people of the favelas that my friends had had of the gypsies years before. Neither the favela dwellers nor the gypsies ever did me any harm. I had a great friend in a blind guitarist. From him I learned “No tabulero de la Bahiana tem” and other popular songs. It was Carnival time, with it’s fantastic disguises and sambas. Most of the participants were blacks, the women in crinolines and light-colored wigs, making great efforts to appear white. I still have some of my engravings and paintings of that famous samba. A Brazilian asked me if I was going to exhibit in Europe, observing that it would not be good to give the impression that Brazil was a country of blacks.
Racial prejudice, as in the rest of the world. |
 - Olga Fisch, excerpt from her memoirs "The Folklore through my Eyes - Memoirs of Olga Fisch" published by CIDAP, 1985, page 164. |
1939, New York, PM Magazine, Vol 4 #12
1943, Quito: The beginning of Folklore
One day a man asked if he could call upon us. He introduced himself as Lincoln Kirstein. "I am the director of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York," he said. "I've heard that you have a little collection and would like to see it." Among the things Kirstein noticed was a small rug, lying on the estera, which I had designed and had woven in Guano (the indigeneous Guano weaving knot).
Upon learning that the rug was of my doing, he asked "Would you like to make one for MoMA?"
Would I! Would I like to have the blue of the sky or a cathedral? Indeed I would. Bela ( her husband) and I looked at each other and answered, "Well, yes." - "How much would one 9 x 12 cost?" We had no idea, -"Three hundred dollars?" Kirstein took out his checkbook and paid us.
With that money, we opened Folklore.
As the basis for the design of this first rug sold out of Ecuador, I used the motif in a section of painted tree bark , called Llanchama. These are found along the Pacific coast of South America but are rare in Ecuador, and I was proud to have the piece. Since I was much impressed by the primitive Amazoan cultures, I called the design "Jibaro".
- Olga Fisch, excerpt from her memoirs "The Folklore through my Eyes - Memoirs of Olga Fisch" published by CIDAP, 1985, page 182.
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Webmasters Note: I contacted MoMA concerning the provenance of this rug, and it appears, unfortunately, that it is no longer a part of their collection. I was told by a MoMA archivist that "The rug that you have described is not in the Museum's permanent collection, however, a drawing by Ms. Olga Anhalzer-Fisch is included in the permanent collection." This painting of Olga's is titled "Indian Girl", and the low-resolution scan that they provided is included above.
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1948, The Cradle of American Art, page 74 
Olga Anhalzer Fisch
How often during her travels Olga Fisch has deplored the fact that nature has not equipped human beings with greater capacity to take in all beauty. ‘Two eyes”, she exclaimed in her studio, “are not enough to take in all the movement of an African tribal dance, a carnival scene in Rio de Janeiro or a ‘San Juanito’ dance in Ecuador.”
Olga Fisch came to the Western Hemisphere in 1938 and in 1939 had a successful solo show at the Bonestell Gallery in New York. However, it was to this small “Paradise of the Andes”, Ecuador, that she found new impulse and inspiration for her work. The changes in the tropical jungle, the Colonial architecture of Quito, the pre-Incaic traditions, all held a great fascination for her.
In the beginning of her stay in Quito, Olga taught painting at the National School of Fine Arts and devoted
herself to collecting polychromed wood carvings of the early 18th century. Olga had been studying the designs of Indian folk art and in 1942 decided to open her own $tudio, “Folklore” in Quito. In the undertaking she showed how antique Indian objects and designs can be adapted to modem living. She only carried a step further that principle of the Indians’ handiwork-that a thing must be functional. Olga spent her evenings doing research on actual Indian motifs, which today are being utilized in the manufacture of “Folklore” rugs. One of her rugs is represented in the permanent collection of the Modem Museum on 53rd Street in New York, and in the same gallery is her painting of an “Indian Girl.”
Looking at the more practical side of Fisch and Fisch, Inc., it could not function if it were not for the vision of Olga Fisch’s husband. He operates the studioshop on Guayaquil Street, in Quito, while Olga supervises her studio on Mariano Aguilera, In the studio on Mariano Aguilera Avenue this clever artist has used in her appointments the “Bayetta” Indian doth (worn by the Indian women for skirts) as draperies and upholstery. This bayeta in gay colors serves as the backdrop for Olga’s Colonial statuettes, oil paintings, exotically designed antique tupos or ‘Topos’ (a shawl pin worn by the Indian mother) and the authentically designed “Folklore” rugs.
Anyone visiting Quito should make it a point to see “Folklore.” As Marian O’Keefe, Director of the Ecuadorian-North American Center, said, “’There is nothing in all South .America comparable to “Folklore” studio and workshop on Mariano Aguilera!”
Olga AnhaIzer Fisch brought from Budapest, Hungary, her native home, the training, culture, and understanding of the Old World. This, she has adapted to the best in the new and popularized it so that it is possible for anyone in the Western Hemisphere to possess a thing of good Indian design today .
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1959, American Fabrics Magazine, Volume Three
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ECUADOR, FOLKLORE AND OLGA FISCH
By Arthur Goodfriend
Ecuador’s savage Jivaro Indian and New York’s Junior League find common ground in a tiny tourist shop, studio and rug factory in Quito, Ecuador. Its name: Folklore. Its specialty: adapting primitive Ecuadorian designs to modern living. Mother, nurse, guiding genius of the enterprise is Olga Anhalzer Fisch, born in Budapest in 1901, and driven by Hitler to Ecuador in 1939. Her outstanding accomplishment: hand loomed rugs woven by 30 Indian and mestizo craftsmen from Olga’s designs.
Designs and colors are from Jivaro, Colorado, Riobamba, Otavalo, Auca and Cayapa sources. Gourds, jug , “dancing embroideries” from Calderon, G-strings and loin-cloths from jungle tribes, fajas worn by mountain people, African motifs from negro villages of Esmeraldas and the Chota Valley are converted into fabrics, handbags, hoes, lamps, furniture and carpeting which strike the first tasteful, novel note below Taxco.
Motif Is Repeated Throughout Decor
Ecuadorian decor by Fisch usually begins with some native fragment such as a Jivaro motif painted on tapa cloth. or a Riobamba gourd. The primitive design is adapted in a series of sketches; may be repeated in lamp shades, rugs, chair coverings, hand hags, shoes. In the case of a rug, for example, design and color are first worked out on squared graph paper, and then advance to the Fisch factory. Here native weavers translate the paper pattern into a wool rug . .. completely Indian - except for the durable Persian knot Olga introduced into Ecuador.
Gamut of Materials
Jivaro lamp shades are mated with bamboo and pottery bases. Upholstery is stretched over mahogany and lignum vitae frames. Bright colored fajas ... Indian belts ... are stripped over native tanned suede, cut and tailored into slick handbags. Olga’s cobblers cover their last with identical patterns and shades, creating balsa wood wedgies with faja trim and leather soles that weigh no more than 12 ounces. Handbags, memo books and belts in matching sets utilize native velours and leather, with ever changing faja designs. Belt buckles are adapted from ancient Inca pins; handbags close with modern drawstring.
What little of Olga Fisch handicraft the world has seen, it’s loved. New York’s Modern Museum of Art has one of her rugs, one of her paintings. Reproductions of some of her gouaches have appeared in Vogue. The Christian Science Monitor in August, 1944, published a piece on her handicrafts. The Bonestell Gallery has exhibited her paintings and textiles. A half-dozen Americans keep her loom busy, and have furnished homes with her lamps and bamboo bars. Her handbags, shoes, belts, fajas are a vogue among Quito’s diplomatic crowd. In Folklore’s rugs, ready-to-wear, accessories and home furnishings, the world has something new, fresh, invigorating, vital. If Olga Fisch has her way. Ecuador may some day become another Mexico or Guatemala.
A feature of AMERICAN FABRICS Number IV will be a series of
Interior Decorating Ideas developed by Olga Fisch. |
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1959: Arts & Architecture Magazine, November Issue
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History
