Herbert Gustave Schmalz Biography
Herbert Schmalz was born in England to a German father - Schmalz is best known under that name, but changed his name to Carmichael in 1918.
Schmalz’s art training was fairly conventional, including studying at South Kensington and the Royal Academy Schools, and then abroad in Antwerp. Schmalz knew Leighton, living near him in Kensington, and marrying the sister of Dorothy Dene, who was one of Leighton’s favorite models.
Schmalz developed a style influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, but more soft, showing single figures or groups, over-pious religious scenes and sentimental lovers, and some topographical paintings. Schmalz also produced Orientalist paintings featuring girls with pots, camels etc somewhat akin to work by Goodall. All of this was well calculated to impress the Victorian public, and much of Schmalz paintings were widely reproduced in magazines and as prints.
Following a visit to Jerusalem in 1890, his travel sketches were published in the Art Journal as ‘A painter’s pilgramage’ in 1893. Schmalz exhibited at the EA from 1879, and in 1900 he had a solo exhibition of forty paintings entitled ‘A Dream of Fair Women’ at the Fine Art Society in Bond Street.