Memories of Elfriede

Elfriede Fischinger was one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. She seemed tireless in her devotion to and promotion of not only her husband’s art but also that of many others. I have fond memories of her working with her succulents in the back yard of her Laurel Canyon home, procuring some sweet from her kitchen, or searching through Oskar’s artifacts. Her help in giving me information and preparing film clips of Oskar Fischinger’s experiments was more than gracious. Elfriede was always warmhearted and ebullient, and one felt happy just being in her company. She will be greatly missed, and affectionately remembered.

Dear Larry,
Thanks for passing on this very sad news. It is a comfort to hear that her passing was so peaceful. I have many very fond memories of her (many of them centering round breakfasts; a great bowl of fruit salad ever available in the fridge at Wonderland Park Avenue; a mutual hunt for something good to start the day with in Toronto).. She was such a vital spirit, and a valiant partner in every sense of the word in Oskar's great life-project. With her passing, we've also lost a direct connection with one of Cinema's most ambitious movements. But we have you and Bill to thank for ensuring that the Fischinger achievement and spirit will remain with us, undiminished.
Very best wishes,
David

She was a wonderful and warm link to our collective animation history.

Elfriede's vivaciousness made it seem like she would be go on forever. I am a bit numb with the realization that I cannot visit her again.

Last summer I attended the SAS conference held in California. At the time I was writing a thesis at the University of Oslo on abstract animation and going to San Francisco and LA was a great oppurtunity for my research. I was introduced to Elfriede Fischinger by Robin Allan after he had lectured on Disney and Fischinger´s work in the studio. Robin told her that I was very interested in seeing some of her husbands paintings and her immediate response was - "Do you have a car?" I didn´t and she told me - "You have to have a car in California". I said that of course I would rent one, and she invited me to come over to her home. So I rented a car and visited her.

In her home she showed me paintings as well as other historical treasures. She also guided me in her garden and told me that she had been doing some gardening earlier that day. Elfriede was getting a bit tired and I told her that since she had given me such a memorable time the least I could do was to finish the work in the garden. I think she thought seeing me, a Norwegian not used to the Californian summer, going about in the heat was quite funny and so did I since the whole scenario was quite surreal. She offered me a shower and dinner. She made us dinner and I left her filled with food and impressions, feeling very privileged to have met such an amazing person. I will never forget my day with Elfriede Fischinger, and I will treasure the memory of her hospitality, humour, and not least her efforts promoting film art.

Dear colleagues! We share your grief. We remember very well our meeting with Elfriede Fischinger in Haag in 1993. We were moved by her young energy, her kind attitude to us. Please, transmit our deepest sorrow and condolences to her friends and relatives.

Deepest condolences go out to friends and family.

My interest and love of animation, dance and music all stem from the early works of Oskar and Elfriede their memories live on, with their inspirational and imaginative renderings. I am indebted to them forever.

Thank you.

I first met the Fischingers as a child at my mother's home in Glendale California about 1960 when they came for the opening celebration of my mother's magazine "Kultur Echo", which was the beginning of a long friendship...I was especially impressed with Elfriede, and the long conversations we would have, both in German and English, and the kind nature she showed to everyone....and I am always glad when I see the piece of art by Oskar she personally inscribed and gave my mother, which is now hanging on my office wall.

Over twenty years of supportive friendship linked us across continents. The news of Elfriede's death, although not entirely surprising in view of the fact that she had reached the stately age of 88, produced a major animation film of recollections in my internal cinema. This wealth of memories contributes to my underlying conviction that the vast amount of effort we invest in our artistic work does have value and meaning because Elfriede provided many of us with a sort of context, a linking network within which our work achieves its broader meaning. She was not merely the wife of Oskar Fischinger perpetuating the ideals of bygone times, she was the hub of that exotic universe in which experimental animators live. She filled it with inspiration, motivation and support. This I think, was her major contribution to us and to the evolution of the culture in which we participate.

On a practical level, there was always board and lodging for any animating creature that took the trouble to come to Wonderland Park or later, to Volk Ave. Back in the mid-seventies, I visited LA for the first time and - not without a certain degree of trepidation - called Elfriede. I had little to commend me. A few paltry experiments back at the art college which have fortunately long since disappeared. It was a Wednesday, the day of Madame Fischingers salon. She was providing spaghetti and people were coming to show their new work and I should be there too. That evening I met Sara Petty who showed her newly completed "Furies" and who subsequently became a highly estimed colleague and friend. It was through Elfriede that I met Bill Moritz, Larry Cuba, Michael Scroggins and Pat O'Neill and other colleagues actively participating in the evolution of film as an experimental medium. I became linked to a community of artists in which my own activities took on meaning, in which there was a collegial exchange of ideas and a reassuring feeling of solidarity and mutual support. For this I thank you Elfriede. Wonderland Park (Nomen est Omen) made it possible.

However, it would be unfair to define Elfriede merely in terms of her usefulness. There was a genuine affection between her and her protegés. Largely this was founded on certain rituals, like taking Elfriede to the hairdresser at Beverley Center coupled with chicken salad at the Thai restaurant (sadly no longer in existance) or shopping and pizza at the Farmers Market or in more recent times, clam chowder at the restaurant near Volk Ave. Then, of course, there are the endearing memories of scouring bookshops in Paris, together with Bill Moritz. In nameless Bistros in the vicintiy of the Centre Pompidou we huddled around tables with countless collegues. Sunflower Rose. Algerian wine. A Man Ray catalogue. Elfriede discovers "trout" in a Provencal sewer. There were other encounters in other cities. Frankfurt. Amsterdam. Hamburg.

Allow me one more reminiscence. Elfriede and Bill arrived in Hamburg on tour and were staying in my apartment. A call came from some obscure source. Yes, they had heard that Elfriede was in town and could she show some films. I am plagued by scepticism and a deep seated feeling of responsibility for my guests. Elfriede is undiluted enthusiasm. We arrive in a part of town most noted for its radical underground inhabitants, at a cinema which is a building site without seats which have to be fetched from a nearby cafe and an audience of teenage punks. My internal alarm systems are ringing loudly. How does a nigh on eighty year old dame cope with a bunch of prepubertal extra-terrestrials? She was so sovereign. Hypnotised them with anecdotes about Oskar and herself in the Thirties and with films, converting an audience of radical autonomists into devout subjects. Elfriede Regina opened up a whole new world for them. Her unwaivering conviction infected all around her. I mention this for those readers who met her regularly, who through daily routine no longer perceived her particular qualities. For those of us who only saw her infrequently, she was a motivating personality. One did not have to share her opinion ( and one frequently did not) but one could not be immune to her dedication to and enthusiasm for all those working with moving images.

Her valuable contribution lies not in the production of art but rather in that unfortunately underestimated aspect of culture, the vitally important support of creative activities. Because this aspect is so underestimated, I feel it worthwhile drawing attention to the vast cultural impetus which took place in LA due to the arrival of emigrés in the Thirties. The Fischingers were certainly part of that cultural input and I fear that Elfriede's role in that phenomena is often undervalued because it is less obvious, less material.

For those of us here in Hamburg who enjoyed the privilege of knowing Elfriede and the hospitality of Wonderland Park, Seung-Yon Lee (painter), Xiaoyong Chen (composer) and myself, I would like this poor homage to be seen as an expression of profound gratitude to Elfriede Fischinger. In the virtual reality of memory she continues to animate us all.

Dear iotaCenter,
I would like to send you my condoleances about Elfriede Fischinger's death. Since I have had the luck to meet this extraordinary women a few times, once in her home in the Hollywood Hills, where she demonstrated the Luminograph, and later when I invited her to the manifestation "The Academy of Light", in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, I know a bit how you feel: you are missing her. I hope her spirit will continue to live in the activities of the iotaCenter, and in the lives of the participants of your initiative.
Yours sincerely,
Frans Evers

I first met Elfriede at the Zagreb festival in 1988. I had just started my research into animation in Norway in the 1930s and brought with me a cassette of some of the tobacco cinema commercials for the Norwegian company Tiedemann. Elfriede and Bill Moritz were interested in my research, and it was a very exciting moment when they recognised the film "En fargesymfoni i blått" as a slightly edited and for them unknown version of "Komposition in Blau'.

Elfriede's comments like "This scene I made" and "Here's something missing" turned into surprise when the new ending using the logo of the Norwegian tobacco brand Medina turned up. This little episode and the encouraging words I got from Elfriede and Bill, has been a very important driving force in my research into the connections of Norwegian cinema commercials and the German animation scene of the 1930s.

I cannot say it better than the Iota site has already. I, too, am so fond of Elfriede "for her tireless enthusiasm for abstraction and the art of animation, for her unique personality, for her feistiness, for her sense of humor, for her endearing accent, for her uncompromising ideals and above all, for her spirit."

Like many others, she welcomed me into her home, with a bowl of homemade lentil soup waiting, no less. It is one of my dearest memories from my life in the "animation world", along with playing the lumigraph at her house in the hills. And what a great laugh she had! I hope I can always hear it, as I do now.

Sad news indeed! Elfriede was a light in the dark and although I didn't get to spend that much time with her, the time I spent was always an inspiration to keep on exploring. Her generosity and spirit live on.