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CATHOLIC WORKER Subscription: Vol. I.XVII, No. 6 October-November, 2000 25¢ PerYear Price 1¢ Artist With STORIES A Message FROM CUBA By DANIEL MAUK By SUZETIE ERMLER At the Catholic Worker's Friday Night Meeting on December 1, we'll be remem­ From 37,000 feet, I saw the July 4th sun bering a dear friend and fellow worker, Fritz set and the crescent moon rise, while Eichenberg, who died 10 years ago at the sparkling lights glistened below. I soon real­ age of 89. Part of the evening will be a look ized that the source was not houses or indus­ at a half-hour documentary· of Fritz's work try, but, rather, a pyrotechnic wonderwork of made by Christopher Lydon of PBS-TV and red and blue from a town celebrating below. first broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1985. Then, there was darkness and explosion Though many readers have seen the art again, as we passed over another American of Fritz Eichenberg in the pages of The community. I couldn't help but feel sus­ Catholic Worker-he created over 100 pended in time, groundless between two images that began appearing in the paper 50 feuding countries that have long prided years ago-some may be unaware of the themselves on their revolutions and histo­ remarkable man whose mind, heart and ries of independence. bands created these works of art Through Soon after I arrhred home from my three­ his wood engravings, Fritz made a unique week trip to Cuba, I sent a small care package · contribution to the world of graphic arts. with a Pastors for Peace caravan to the two If misery can play a part in the formation men who drove our group for fourteen days. and inspiration of an artist, then Fritz's for­ Otoniel and Rolando served not only as mative years as an artist began very early. He superb guides and workers to the nineteen was born in Cologne, Germany, on October travelers from my sister's North Carolina 24, 1001, and spent the early years of his life church, Church of Reconciliation, but also watching his father's slow decline into death as true friends. I had gone as a translator for from Parkinson's disease. Fritz adored his the church's work trip, where we did painting father and had never seen him walk. He once and small agricultural projects in Matanzas, said, "I wanted to hold hands with my father Santa Clara and Cardenas, but also received and walk upright with him through the an education from those I met. streets of Cologne .. .. It was my dream, and As I reflect on my time there, I am again I dreamed it very often." Instead, at the age confounded by the quantity of stories shared of 15, a young Fritz held his father in his with me and by the striking contradictions in arms as he died. the Cuba I experienced. I feel that only those Of his :first 11 years of schooling in the who have lived through the revolution (or local gymnasium, Fritz remembered that he been born since it), stayed, and withstood would sit, "waiting for the bell to save me." He · what Fidel Castro ironically labeled "el peri­ hated school, the corporal punishment that odo especial" (the special period) may claim ·went along with it, and all of the regimenta­ a hold on Cuba's depth: The name meant tion of German society at the time. Sur­ Self-Porn:ait Fritz'Eichenberg (Continued on page 5) rounded by uniforms--soldier, mailman, and station master alike-Fritz recalled being illustrating articles, and making posters and forced to line the streets with all the other cartoons. Little did he ltnow that Adolf Hitler, Bouquet children, waving flags when the Emperor, a character frequently lampooned in his car-· A Spiritual Kaiser Wilhelm, came to Cologne. toons, would soon turn Germany and most of By CHRISTOPHER NUGENT As Fritz told the story, "Providence took Europe into a death trap. a hand in guiding me to my true vocation." My sister and I ••• made perfume. Even echo of the agony of another bohemian of The Great War was still raging and Fritz, as An Immigrant now I can remember the peculiar, deli­ sorts, Augustine, in his garden at Milan, in an undernourished teenager, fainted in front Fritz always said he knew he wanted to cious, pungent smell. the year 385. The issues were remarkably of the door of an Eichenberg family tenant. get out of Germany, even before Adolf Hitler -Dorothy Day, From Union Square to kindred: a life in letters or in religion? "Good­ Fortuitously, the tenant turned out to be an came to power. In 1933, coincidentally the 'Rome fellow" or renunciant? Fulfillment of the flesh art historian and museum curator named year that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin Two loves have built two cities. and proper progeny-and I find it apposite Fritz Witte, who proceeded to introduce Fritz began the Catholic Worker movement, Fritz -St. Augustine, The City of God that the new "Confessions," The Seven to Eduard Fuchs's History of European made a trip to the United States to cover the Storey Mountain, was prefaced with the Satirical Art After seeing the work of artists Chicago World's Fair. He instantly fell in love Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and the text, "For I tell you that God is able of these the likes of Francisco Goya and Honore with New York City and it was here thafhe Little Flower form a tripty'ch, or trinity, of three stones to raise up children to Abraham"-or , Daumier, Fritz was determined "to become settled with his young family. loves, a spiritual bouquet This bouquet emits one might say, a quite literally stony celibacy? an artist with a message." Forever crediting Fritz's early years in America were times not just the familiar "odor of sanctity," but Academy or Gethsemani? Dr. Witte, Fritz said, "This enlightened man ... of success and sorrow. He recorded his first invites a mystical-critique of culture, including Thomas Merton turned to Therese and put my mind and my pencil in the right direc­ impressions of New York in a series of the wilted remnant or diasporq of the counter­ asked for a sign, aware that this could be a tion." prints-'The Aquarium," "The Subway," "The culture-that is, "flower children." To a com­ "precarious" way to pray. Suddenly, in his The following years in post-war Germany Steps," and "City Light"-and, looking at pulsively dualistic society, it could instill, hope­ spiritual sense, he began to "hear the great were both a struggle and a joy for a blooming them today, one can still sense Fritz's fasci­ fully, a sheerest drop of sense, the fragrance bell of Gethsemani ringing in the night" Just artist Fritz became an apprentice at the print­ nation with the grit and glamour of New York, of peace. Like the perfume of young Dorothy as the mysterious voice of a child had called ing plant of DuMont Schauberg in Cologne, his new home. Soon he was teaching at The Day. for Augustine a millennium and a half earlier, and it was at this time that he took his first life New School for Social Research, where he If this should sound unlikely, let us begin the bell tolled for Thomas Merton. Within drawing class. Fritz approached his art edu­ remained for the next 10 years and, at the with the incarnation of the unlikely, Thomas two weeks of this night, the heretofore irres­ cation with the same discipline and zeal that invitation of George Macy, he began the first Merton. And, since the sometime bohemian olute Thomas Merton would enter Gethse­ forever after characterized his life, and, to his of many jobs with The Limited Editions Club was a man of dramatic passages, let us begin mani where he would be, as he recounted.in great delight, he was accepted as a master by producing 29 engravings to illustrate with a little psychodrama his journal, "Theresa's Trappist" student at the Academy of Graphic .Arts in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor On the bitter night of November 23, 1941, Why Therese, one might ask, and not a · Leipzig, the book center ofEurope at the time. Dostoevsky, his favorite author. the young pilgrim of twenty-six had reached his sophisticated intellectual like St. Augustine, Upon graduation from the Academy in In 1937, death danced through Fritz's life apparent impasse. He was alone on the campus with whom Thomas Merton can be said to 1923, Fritz went to work as a newspaper artist again when Mary Altmann Eichenberg, his of St Bonaventure University before a shrine really begin his spiritual odyssey? Something and traveling correspondent, and enjoyed wife of 11 years, died unexpectedly, leaving of St Therese, the tittle Flower, the whole subliminal, I think, drew him to Therese, those exciting years when the arts flourished Fritz and a young daughter alone in what was cult of which, ironically, he found aesthetical­ something more elemental than sophistica­ in Berlin before the rise of Nazism. Married still a new world. It was an experience that he ly objectionable. But, he was desperate and tion, of which he was already adequately and with a family of his own, he took on vary­ later described as profoundly painful, an expe- the question critical: to be or not to be a monk. endowed. This could have included their ing jobs to make a living, such as writing and (Continued on page 7) This was a primal experience: to me, an (Continued on page 8) Page Two TIIE CATIIOLIC WORKER October-November, 2000 Vol.

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