Expressionist painter, draughtsman, printmaker, illustrator and teacher, born in Vienna, Austria, son of the composer Hanns Eisler, his mother the singer Charlotte Eisler. From 1936 Eisler spent 20 months with his mother in Moscow, but during the return to Vienna they learned that Hitler had arrived there, so they stayed in Prague, having to move to England in 1939. Settled in Manchester, Eisler attended the Central High School for Boys and was encouraged in his painting by art historian Margaret H Bulley, who acted as a patron. Eisler attended the Stockport, Manchester and Salford Schools of Art, in 1944 showing at Foyles Gallery in an exhibition of Austrian artists in England including Oskar Kokoschka, who taught him. Eisler had his first solo show in Manchester in 1946, the year he returned to Vienna, where he studied life drawing in the evenings at the Academy.
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From the late 1940s Eisler travelled and showed extensively across Europe. Notable events included Otto Klemperer’s request for set and costume designs for Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House, 1962; award of the Austrian Staatspreis for painting and major shows at the Vienna Secession and at Weinmüller’s, Munich, 1965; election as president of the Secession in 1968 (until 1972); publication in 1970 of a monograph by Otto Breicha on Eisler’s works, with a solo show at the Secession; award of the Prize of the City of Vienna, 1971; of the Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1974; and the Klimt Award of the Vienna Secession in 1976; followed by a retrospective in Graz in 1977. In 1979 Edition Tusch published a portfolio of Eisler’s etchings, entitled Imaginary Portraits – 14 Poets, the year he illustrated Dashiell Hammett’s detective stories. Eisler participated in the Venice Biennale in 1982. Eisler’s teaching included International Summer Academy in Salzburg, 1981–2–4, and the University of New Mexico, 1983–5. His later exhibitions included Landscape of Exile, 1988, at Manchester City Art Gallery, evocative views of the city.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)
