Paula Buchwald grew up in Vienna between the wars. Her father worked for the government but was an artist at heart–and more than an amateur, Buchwald says. “He studied art privately but was very good: lovely landscapes.” When he went into the Vienna Woods with his watercolors, he took her with him. “Vienna is a picturesque city, especially the suburbs. We had a good life there,” Buchwald recalls. “And my father’s brother, Joseph, who lived in Italy, was a well-known painter, so art was very much a part of it.” By the late 1930s, though, ominous changes were in the air. “We could see what was happening in Germany. I was still in Vienna when Chancellor Schuschnigg gave Austria over to Hitler. I was lucky because I had friends and relatives in America and they sent me an affidavit of support. So I left in 1938. Perfectly legal. Very soon it became terribly difficult to get out.”
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Buchwald was 25 years old when she arrived in Chicago. “By coincidence,” she says, “I had studied English in Vienna. So when I came here, accent or no, I could take a job.” She worked as a secretary in a downtown office, brought her parents and sister over as fast as she could, and married a young man she had known in Austria, a fellow emigre, Leopold Buchwald. The simple ceremony was performed on November 16, 1939, by a judge who remarked that he didn’t see many brides carrying roses. The groom had bought them for her–something he did on the 16th of every month that followed for the rest of his life. While her husband worked as a mechanical engineer and product designer, Buchwald took a new job as secretary to the curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. With the help of employee tuition breaks, she enrolled as a student at the School of the Art Institute, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees there, and went on to teach the history of art and design at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
Buchwald’s work and a thousand other items will be offered at the Suburban Fine Arts Center’s 12th annual Recycled Art Sale. It starts with a preview party and auction at 6:30 Friday night at the center, 1913 Sheridan Road in Highland Park. Tickets for the preview party are $12; after tonight admission to the sale is free. It runs through August 26; hours are 9 to 5 Monday through Saturday. Call 847-432-1888.
