NEN Gallery

Feibusch was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1898. He studied medicine in Munich before settling in Berlin in 1920 for his art studies. He was becoming successful as an artist when the Third Reich made life in Germany impossible. He was one of the artists exhibited in the 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition - Entartete Kunst - put on by the Nazis to highlight the modernist trends in art that they opposed. Feibusch was one of a minority of artists whose work was relatively conservative but was probably included for his Jewish heritage. His works in that exhibition, now lost, were two paintings of angels.

Escaping to England, Feibusch converted to Christianity. Befriended by the Anglican Bishop Bell of Chichester, he received the first of his many church commissions to create a mural in the private chapel in the Bishop's Palace. Feinbusch made use of the existing medieval wall with blocked windows at the chapel's West end by depicting people looking out of the windows. He worked in other Anglican churches – depicting the Pilgrim's progress at St Elizabeth's Eastbourne, the Prodigal Son in All Saints, Iden and St John Baptising Christ in the baptistery of Chichester Cathedral. His largest single work is a huge mural of the Judgement in St Albans, Holborn, alongside a set of paintings depicting the Stations of the Cross. He also carried out several murals in the village of Portmeiron, in Wales through his
friendship with Clough Williams-Ellis and his portrait of Ellis is in the National Portrait Gallery. He also created 12 murals, each more than 20 feet (6 m) high, around the central hall of Newport Civic Centre which told the history of Newport. These were painted between 1961 and 1964.

Feibusch’s work was always representational but he developed an Expressionist use of colour and intensity of vision. He used colour to accentuate intent and meaning. He especially liked orange against pinks and acid yellow against blues. His compositions, often of closely-grouped figures, are almost neo-classical in their arrangement and mannered poses. His figures often have an ethereal quality, as if defying gravity. Feibusch continued to do portraits and easel paintings and took up sculpture when his eyesight began to fail, but he is best known for his murals. He wrote a book Mural Painting, in 1946, and also wrote about mural painting in a number of journals. Feibusch died just days before his 100th birthday in 1998, soon after attending a celebration of his work at the Royal College of Art. In his years he reverted to Judaism and was buried at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery. His estate bequeathed the entire contents of his studio to Pallant House Gallery in Chichester.