Artists

Born in Munich in 1900, Ernest Ullmann was an artist from a young age. As a teenager during WWI, he was appointed as assistant-artist to the director of the Anthropological Institute of the University of Munich. Upon the end of the war and after graduating from school, he enrolled in the university’s Department of History of Art and Philosophy and later attended the Academy of Fine Arts to study drawing and sculpture. He worked as an illustrator and editor for Auslandpost in Munich and then as an art director at Mitropa-Zeitung in Berlin. As restrictions on Jewish life became stricter in Germany, Ullmann left the country in 1935 and moved to South Africa to join his sister. He settled in Johannesburg and soon became the art director of a new magazine, The Forum. Aside from working in publishing (he also co-founded a publishing company called Silver Leaf Books), Ullmann worked in many other mediums – often as public commissions, including painting, drawing, sculpture, tapestry, and murals. He was also a set and exhibition designer and even created a range of stuffed toys. Another of Ullmann’s enduring legacies is his love of nature, and the farm where he lived in the Morningside suburb of Johannesburg is now a public park that bears his name and houses many of his sculptures.