Biography
Walter Horst Nessler (b. Leipzig, Germany 1912 - d. London 2001) studied at the Castello Italian Art School, Dresden (1933-5) and in Paris. He was dismissed from his job as a window dresser in Germany after replacing the star on the Christmas tree with a Star of David, as a symaptheic gesture even though he was not Jewish. He managed to escape Nazi Germany in 1937 following his wife, Prudence Ashbee, a dancer studying at the Wigman School and the daughter of Arts & Crafts architect, C. R. Ashbee, who had previously smuggled his spoof Das Hitler ABC to England. Nessler was interned in Huyton Camp, Liverpool in 1940, and after release, served in the Pioneer Corps for the rest of the war, including being stationed in France. After WW2 he settled in London and visited Paris, where he met Picasso, Giacometti and Cocteau. In 1953 he was re-married, to Erica Ulman. He also studied sculpture with Elisabeth Frink at St Martin’s School of Art in London (1959).
Nessler had a number of solo exhibitions at galleries including the Leger Gallery (1943 & 1947), Redfern Gallery (1954) and John Denham Gallery (1984-97), and participated in the exhibition London Artists from Germany (German Embassy, 1978). A retrospective organised by John Denham in 1990 coincided with renewed interest in Germany. In 2004, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, featured its holding of pictures by Nessler with those of Hugo (Puck) Dachinger (1908-1995) relating to their Huyton internment in Art Behind Barbed Wire. Nessler was made an honorary fellow of the Dresden Academy and held a travelling solo show in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Dresden. The Pallant House Gallery, Chichester held a retrospective exhibitition Walter Nessler: Postwar Optimist (2019).
