Eva Fischer

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Eva Fischer (Daruvar, 19 November 1920 – Rome, 7 July 2015) was a Croatia-born Italian artist who worked in oils, watercolours, engraving and lithography.Recupero, J. 39 Engravings and 21 Lithographs (Cidac, Rome: 1978){{cite web|title=E' morta oggi a Roma la pittrice Eva Fischer|url=http://www.adnkronos.com/cultura/2015/07/07/morta-oggi-roma-pittrice-eva-fischer_8B9PawECQTn5Atx4QcWL0K.html|publisher=adnkronos|accessdate=13 July 2015|language=Italian}}

Life and work

Eva Fischer was born in Daruvar (present-day Croatia) in 1920. Her father, Leopold, was the community's Chief Rabbi and a noted Talmudist. He was deported by the Nazis from Yugoslavia before the outbreak of World War II along with more than thirty members of her family. Very few survived the concentration camps. Fischer was able to graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lyon, just before the outbreak of World War II.{{cite web |url=http://www.artport.it/ |title=Home |website=artport.it}}

Fischer was apprended in Belgrade and interned with her mother and her younger brother in the Vallegrande prison camp on the Croatian island of Korčula, then under the administration of Fascist Italy. She and her brother were allowed to assist her sick mother in the Split hospital. They were later granted permission to be transferred to Bologna. In 1943, following the outbreak of Italian Civil War, Fischer went on the hide with her family and adopted the cover surname "Venturi". She began to collaborate with the “Partito d’Azione” (a Resistance movement against the Nazi occupation) and met with Partisan Wanda Varotti{{Cite web|url=https://www.storiaememoriadibologna.it/varotti-wanda-500490-persona|title = Varotti Wanda - Storia e Memoria di Bologna}} and Massimo Massei.

At the end of the war Fischer moved to Rome. She joined a group of artists in Via Margutta, and became a close friend of Giovanni Omiccioli.{{cite web | url=https://www.centopittoriviamargutta.it/chi-siamo/ | title=Chi Siamo }} A defining moment was her meeting with Pablo Picasso during a party at Luchino Visconti's home. They talked for most of the night and he encouraged her to continue with her work and pursue her investigation into boats and Southern architecture in her painting. She moved to Paris, where she lived for a long time in Saint Germain des Près and befriended Marc Chagall and Ossip Zadkine.http://www.abef.it/comunicati/20160413_1986-2016.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}}

In the 1960s, Fischer exhibited at the Lefevre Gallery in London, where the Italian painter Modigliani held his last one man exhibition. In 1992 Italian composer Ennio Morricone{{Cite web|url=https://forward.com/culture/450267/how-jewish-themes-inspired-ennio-morricone/|title=How Jewish themes inspired Ennio Morricone|date=7 July 2020 }} wrote and recorded music for one of her exhibitions, later to be collected in the album/exhibition catalogue A Eva Fischer, pittore.Ennio Morricone A Eva Fischer, Pittore (Forum Studios, 1992)