Franz Kempf

Franz Moishe Kempf was an Australian artist who worked in Australia and Europe. He was a lecturer in printmaking at the University of Adelaide.

Early life and education

Kempf was born in Melbourne on 20 June 1926, and studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, then in Perugia, Italy, and with Oscar Kokoschka in Salzburg, Austria. In England, he worked as a film designer with Richard Macdonald, and was associated with Peter Blake, Joe Tilson, Ceri Richards and Keith Vaughan. Vaughan had an influence on Kempf’s work of the 1960s.

Kempf worked with and in a variety of media, styles, and methods, including paint, print, etching, lithograph, monotype, screenprint, textile, and woodcut.
Kempf moved to Adelaide, South Australia, in 1963, becoming head of printmaking at the then North [Adelaide School of Arts] in 1969. He was a senior lecturer in printmaking at the University of South Australia from 1973 to 1981, and a guest lecturer at the Slade School of Fine Art, the University of London, the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, and the Gloucester College of Art. He participated in over 90 one-man invitation exhibitions in America, Israel, Germany, Poland, and China.
His thought and work was influenced by Jewish mysticism, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Cavafy and Proust. In his work, he covered subjects from political issues and the natural environment to the spiritual traditions in Judaism. Although from a non-observant background, Kempf turned to following the Chabad movement of Hasidic Judaism, becoming strictly observant.
Professor Sasha Grishin described him as

In 1964, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society UK, and in January 2003, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the Arts.

Kempf died in Adelaide on 8 February 2020. He was married to Tamar, and left two children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The Carclew, an arts centre for youth in North Adelaide, manages the IAF Franz Kempf Printmaker Award, awarded biennially to support the professional development of a young South Australian printmaker. The funding for the award was provided as a gift from Kempf to the Independent Arts Foundation, of which he was a longtime member.
The Franz Kempf Memorial Gallery in the Adelaide Holocaust Museum and Andrew Steiner Education Centre contains work by Kempf.

‘Art in Israel’. Broadsheet, Contemporary Art Society, August 1965, pp. 5–7
‘Polish Printmakers 1972’, Art & Australia 10,3,1973, pp. 236
‘Sculpture in South Australia’, Art & Australia 12, 1, 1974, pp. 46–7
Etchings for Shmuel Gorr, ‘The End of Days’, The Jewish Observer V, 5, October 1968, pp. 16–18, and Shmuel Gorr, ‘The End of Days’, Melbourne: The Levite Press,
Ultimate Goal, Franz Kempf, Generation Vol 3 No 4, General Journal Inc, Melbourne Victoria

Kempf's work is held in the following institutions: