Soshana Afroyim (1927–2015)
Untitled, 1962
gouache on paper, 35.8 x 49.2 cm
signed and dated lower right: Soshana | Cannes 1962
Condition: minor tear in the paper at the bottom
Soshana was born in 1927 as Susanne Schüller in Vienna to a middle-class Jewish family. Her younger brother was Maximilian Schüller. Her father, Fritz Schüller, worked in a factory, and her mother, Margarethe, was a sculptor. She began painting and drawing at a very young age. She witnessed the annexation of Austria in 1938. “I watched Hitler’s triumphant entry into Vienna. I remember well looking out the window and seeing him being greeted by a cheering crowd.” The family decided to leave Austria. Fritz Schüller, who was born in Brno and held a Czech passport, left Austria. Margarethe Schüller fled with her children to Switzerland and then to Paris, where Fritz Schüller was waiting for them. They eventually arrived in London in 1939. Soshana attended Northwood College and, in 1940, Chelsea Polytechnic School, where she took classes in painting and drawing. As a result of the German bombings of London, the family had to take shelter in a bomb shelter almost every night. Her father fled to Spain and, via Tangier, made his way to New York. In 1941, he managed to secure invitations for his family and booked three tickets aboard the “SS Madura,” the last civilian ship. In 1941, she arrived at Ellis Island with her mother and brother. In New York, she enrolled at Washington Irving High School and took a painting class taught by Beys Afroyim. At the age of 17, against her parents’ wishes, she set out on a journey across the U.S. with Beys Afroyim (who later became her husband). To earn a living during this trip, she painted portraits of many writers, scientists, and musicians, including Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Lion Feuchtwanger, Theodore Dreiser, and Hanns Eisler.
In 1951, she returned to Vienna with her son and, that same year, began her studies at the University of the Arts in Vienna; in 1952, she enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where she studied painting under Prof. Sergius Pauser, Albert Paris Gutersloh, and Prof. Herbert Boeckle. Beginning in 1952, she painted in Paris, where she met many renowned artists, including František Kupka, Auguste Herbin, Ossip Zadkine, César, Pignon, Jean Bazaine, Max Ernst, Yves Klein, Alexander Calder, Wifredo Lam, Sam Francis, Jean-Paul Sartre, Affandi, Lain Bangdel, and Marc Chagall.
During her round-the-world trip in 1968, Soshana visited the South Pacific, the Caribbean, Thailand, Bali, Australia, India, Sikkim, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, and Israel. In 1969, she was commissioned by the royal court of Sikkim to paint portraits of the king and queen, and that same year she became a member of the Theosophical Society. In 1972, she moved to Jerusalem, where four exhibitions were planned at the old Jaffa Gallery. When the Yom Kippur War broke out, she left Israel and moved to New York in 1974. In 1985, she returned to Vienna.
