Painter, born in Aussig, Bohemia. He studied at the Academies of Prague, Vienna and Cracow, winning the Rome Prize at the Berlin Academy in 1918. Through the 1920s he obtained solo shows in many European capitals and in America. In 1935 he gained a one-man exhibition at Museum of Western Art, Moscow, and in 1936 received an official invitation to portray Stalin. Although the Soviet press acclaimed him as a leading Socialist Realist painter, it was pointed out that his work retained remnants of an idealist dreamworld. Shortly – disillusioned – he left Russia for Prague and in 1938 fled to Britain with his family, where he continued to paint, anglicising his name to Ernest Norland. He was given shows in Swansea, Cardiff, London and, in 1959, Jerusalem.