The evening world. Newspaper, June 22, 1922, Page 24

il a How Alfred Ernst Floegel’s Unconquerable Ambition For Fifteen Years Survived Starvation and Failures, Then Rewarded Him With Coveted ‘‘Prix de Rome’’ By Victor H. Lawn w York Rvening World) Publishing Co, ROM. kalsominer to ar. tist; from deck. swabber to church decorator; from painter of fire escapes to winner of the Prix de Rome art fellowship! Frese are only few of the jumps in the checkered life of Alfred Ernst Floegel. To be absolutely accurate they are mot jumps at all. He never leaped— unless from the peaks of hope to the sloughs of despair. For more than fifteen years he has worked and starved, labored and studied, failed and succeeded in as continuous and arduous a stretch of persistent plod ding as ever falls to the lot of ono man. To-day he is happy—perhaps hap- pier than any one else in the world, unless it be hi8 mother in Germany, who has not seen him ginco he left to battle the world when only a lad of twelve. He is this year's winner of the Lazarus Fellowship in painting + 1922 ¢ by Prom = ope ee et at the American Academy in Rome. Wor three years he will be assured bread and board, $1,000 a year and unlimited opportunity to work and develop into the fine artist he gives so much promise of becoming. Floegel is only twenty-seven. He reacts to joy and kindred emotions with the avidity of a boy half his agu who has never had a happy day or a tov he didn’t rescue from the obliy ion of a garbage can. I haven't been working since Thursday,"’ he said, his rather hag gard face illumined with bewiten: smiles. By work he meant the jobs with which he earned money to buy insufficient food and paints and to pay the meagre rent for two diminutive rooms on the top floor of No. 210 East 88th Street. Thursday was when he lcarned he had won the coveted prize. “T got so excited, I was off every- thing. I couldn't concentrate, be- cause the pleasure was so great."’ In this one sentence the tragedy and the story of Alfred Floegel in summed up. If he had lived in the Latin Quarter of Paris—in any event, the Latin Quarter of “Trilby'’ and other Victorian romances—he would always have been able to share the FLOEGE L a5 an artist -A Whitewasher Jaintin crust of a fellow artist there would have been somo jovisl student who would refuse to permit solitude to claim its deadly toll of department of the institute, and his Work—like enamelling or painting the moral energy. artist had gone down to Greenwich other competition, won the Lazarus Village he might have spared himself Fellowship. many of the hours alone in which he waged the constant battle with doubt: lad who ts so in love with America that he regrets to leave it even for have it I do it so much I get sick of the three wonderful years in Rome, !t- I love dancing. And when I dance was entirely different. he explained concisely. “I work, and if I played there was no inspect his sketch.) time for work. for playing too much, anyway, They are out for baseball too much, and not the important things.'’ right tint for @ sketch of a stained UFe-’ English, in 1914, four days after the cov glass window he was completing. a have been so much interrupt THE EVENING WORLD, THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 1922, ; for A Livi Oil Wins Rome’s G FLOEGEL as a "kalsominer™ - wilh brush he will keep a6 3d souvenir - Kitchen devised Be) rer e Oia 2 room choice but through force of cir “Then I starved awhile. Then | umstance.’’ had somé higher urt—painting fire I'm not sorry for it.’ It was escapes. hen I starved some more. necessary,"? The expression of his face, the “That is true, a certain amount of inflection of his tones were even more t. But you can conceive, can’t you, naive than the terse summary of his of some person as gifted as you, per- first months in America. And {tt haps even more gifted, but not en- Summed up more recent experienc 4 with your ®hysique, with your pecially the “starved seme more." ength of body to support nd floors, kalsomined ceil ination ad strength of will? losets from one en! ‘That is true,” Floegel admitted, of the country to the other. Then | It is true, Iam healthy and always Joined the union and won mo have been robust. I couldn't have Steady employment. stood it if T were weaker. I have gone | of New York's finest res ¢ without meals. I have never had ‘ences have fresco decorations + ough to eat. But I wanted to live this Prix de Rome winner. Oth only for my painting. If I had been Have gilded chandeliers from his weaker I couldn't have lived. What deft hand. ‘Thousands gaze up I needed most was air—and food. 1 his theatre curtains, and as man couldn't always get the food, but the more worship in churches into t air I could get. That is why I spent decorating of which he has put most of my free Sundays in the open, personality. sketching—to get air."* This too represents a tragedy Floegel, as a boy, managed to get the painter's life. His creative plenty of air. Fortunately his fath- St/nct, his artistic ability, his 1 dow er’s wishes to make an artist of the CUliar genius all go unacclaimer young Alfred fell in with the boy's Pehind the anonymity of a fir ardent desire. The elder Floege! was ?4™me, or the blatant sign of a cor a Mthographer In Leipzig Incidentally, this same German ci These days are probably over now was the home of Frank: Schwarr's 0" Alfred Floegel He has wor father. Schwarz was saved from pov cognition — the ambition ever erty nearly as great, from eviction “above money of the artist. His fe through inability to pay $12 rent, lowship begins Oct. 1 And when he won the same prize for the Weston hag presented Itself how | American Academy in Rome last year, “Mall live until then, This probler will be solved if the Tiffany Pounds tion finds his work meritorious enough to win for him a stay in the tist colony at Oyster Bay. The Foundation is now looking over his work, Two virtually starving New York art- tats thus have been picked out within two years from the city’s slums to be awarded this same prize. But to return to young Floegel He was apprenticed to a decorator and the firet job was to paint a gar den fence. But the lad, eleven, prizes if I have all this bother," he couldn't mix paints and he failed. said wistfully. Streams of callers kept The kindly master taught him the interrupting his work on the glass * secret, and before long Alfred was Window design. His personality is 80 painting whole houses and doing in- Charming, his fear of offending any terior decorating. After four years One #0 great that he sins in the op of apprenticeship he went to Ham- Posite direction and is “walked over"’ burg and the salt air and towering bY less sensitive creatures masts lured him to the sea, He spent Being : his leisure moments sketching on the Floegel “MUSIC* The eee wharves . est of everything—as his history which won for bataeets “Then the happiest moment of my Shows. Mord particularly he believes the PRIX de- ROME life up to that time came,” Floegel in the mandate “brighter continued. "I was signed up on an Where you are.’ The little kitchen, ocean liner, 1 was a deckhand, mix- Sc@reely 6 feet square, which is th: ing the paints for the sailors and Second room of his stud " ov doing some of the more particular ©Ted with grimy green paint when he moved in three years ago. ave : “ 1 officers’ quarters—myself. In my ‘So I got out my trusty kalsomino Even if the young painting, ‘Music,’ submitted in an- Sraca momenta ee elie, brush and gave the walls and ceilings immigrants and other passengers, ® coat of whitewash. But I thought thread of the previous conversation The Captain heard of it, took an in- Sey poveee pres a BOF: ists 1 t in my work and relieved me of of the old green show and made he continued his thoughts on pleas- terest in my tile Sene clang the toi : ure. the hard duties so I could sketch. He ‘hls frieze along the top of the wall was Capt. Meinicker of the Grat , Then too he kalsomined the ceil Waldersee, the Hamburg-American !28 of his studio, a little lighter but liner. Of course, this was before the 2° larger. A mural was outlined in eae tala thin’ for Swe yeare? charcoal, But this will never be fin Many times the artist-deckhand !8hed. The two little bandbox rooms ik Gch oh & ie tb one on the fifth floor of the Yorkville ¢fu) “fast Supper" on this medium. 4 I scrubbed decks and did any ‘tenement form a picturesque spot in tre has also invented a new medium At the American Academy in Rome They're student (14 sop," he sald. ‘I even signed “ney surroundings. The walls are that will withstand heat and water. Floegel will specialize in mural work. in honor of some 6p sailing vessels, because my am- C°Vered with sketches, oll paintings yt js a composition of asbestos that When he returns to this country— one who had success in something. pition was so great to seo what was ®0d gorgeous screens and tapestries. wii] not crack or peel when subjected “I like !t so much, it has got into “But I always said to myself; ‘First going on outside Germany.” These tapestries represent the fer- to great temperatures, or stain when my blood,” he said—he will take op work, then more work, then work ~ This ambition landed him in New tility of Floegel'’s mind. He experi- subjected to water from a hose. It will fresco painting as his specialty. again, and then a little bit of pleas- york, unable to speak a word of mented on an old burlap bag and dis- burn, however, if directly attacked by “But wherever I go, this will. go red that by mixing the paints fiames, with me; I love relics and [ love this Don't you really feel that is bad war began. His first job was wash- properly he could paint tapestries "J didn’t patent it,” Floegel replied brush,” he concluded, taking out of “It is ing the ceiling of an east side res- that look exactly ike the woven to a question on this point, “because a cracked vase the kalsomine brush taurant. piece, He is now working on a beau- J haven't the money, amd I can’t take with which he has kept alive. “But I hope I never win any more artist is only part of equipment. He makes the Always mused. “It is an exercise, as a com- petition for the Beaux Arts Institute of Design." Floegel is in the mural Then taking up the But this persistent young German “IT have amusement. But when I I dance until I'm sick. I don't go to “I had to live in order to paint, the public dances—don't like them, had to lave no time.” (Another pause to the time from my work.’ Most people are out Parties, you know, He paused @ moment to mix the and I philosophy?’ he was asked. * he so readily overdone—not necessarily “This must be in to-night, AQ 4d Oy Vn