Schames, Samson
SCHAMES, SAMSON
SCHAMES, SAMSON (1898–1967), U.S. artist. Born in Frankfurt, Schames studied at the Staedelschule. He designed stage sets for several German theaters, and for the Jewish theater, which was founded in 1933. Although Schames had settled in Britain in 1938 to flee the Nazis, the British government interned him and other perceived potential German threats to national security in 1940 in Huyton Alien Internment Camp, near Liverpool. Other residents of the camp included Martin *Bloch and John *Heartfield. Here, Schames used debris, often grayed from bombardments, to fashion abstract collages and mosaics. In 1948 he immigrated to New York. He exhibited his work in a show in Germany in 1955. In 1989, Schames received a large posthumous exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt. An expressionist, he endowed whatever he painted with explosive spontaneity displayed through stark, spiky strokes. He was a nephew of the Frankfurt gallery owner Ludwig Schames (1852–1922), who exhibited the Expressionists. His work has been exhibited internationally, in such institutions as the Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem; the Leo Baeck Institute, New York; and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, among other places.
bibliography:
Bezalel National Museum (Jerusalem), Samson Schames: 29.9–22.10, 1959; Watercolours and Mixed Media (1959); Juedisches Museum (Frankfurt am Main), Samson Schames 1898–1967. Bilder und Mosaiken (1989).