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Willy Tirr
Willy Tirr (1915 - 1991), painter, born William Tichauer in Stettin, Poland before his family moved to Berlin. In 1938, posing as an English hiker, Willy’s good English enabled him to escape from Germany, but classified as an enemy alien he was interned to Australia where, ironically, his art blossomed. He volunteered for the British army to become a Staff Sergeant and boxing champion. After developing a successful lampshade business in Leeds, Willy joined the staff of Leeds School of Art and in 1969 was made Head of Fine Art at the new Polytechnic (now Leeds Metropolitan University). A complicated and intellectual man, who insisted that art must be made within a social context, Willy’s work was influenced by Schopenhauer, German Expressionism, Japanese watercolours and Kurt Schwitters. In abstraction, collage and raised canvases he expressed his passion for landscape, especially the Yorkshire countryside, exhibiting in many countries, being visiting lecturer in the USA, Canada and Israel, and artist in residence at the University of Wollongong, Australia (an early exhibition was held in York with Terry Frost). Towards the end of his career he obtained a PhD from the Lancaster University for his thesis on German Expressionism. He was married to the photographer, Erika Solon, and had two children.