A Fascinating Life: Dr Gabriele Humbert Parker by Horst Augustinovic

If I could poll the Bermuda community as to the identity of Gabriele Humbert Parker, it would be a fair bet that the majority would not know anything about her. If I was to restrict my poll to the Bermuda art community, the result would still be much the same.

Although back in the 1940s and 1950s, she was a notable personality in the Bermuda art community, today she is largely forgotten.

That is about to change, however. Horst Augustinovic, has authored a fascinating biography on her life and work. She was a highly educated educator, artist, author, and remarkably, an German internee here in Bermuda, during the Second World War.

The book’s title is: A Fascinating Life. Dr Gabriele Humbert Parker, educator, Artist, Author and Bermuda Internee.

What I have learnt, especially from this book, is that in the 1940s and 1950s, and despite the lack of a permanent Bermudan art gallery, the visual arts thrived. It was indeed a golden artistic age. Besides Dr Parker, other notables from that time included Antoine Verpilleux, Donald Kirkpatrick, Byllee Lang, Georgina Hill, Robert Barritt, Charles Lloyd Tucker and Nancy Hutchings Velentine.

Before all that however, Dr Parker was a highly educated professor of German at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1937 she met and married a Bermuda civil servant, Thomas Henry Parker and in the same year she moved to the island.

She was also a German national and after the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939, she was interned in 1940 as an enemy prisoner of war, along with a number of other Germans, Austrians and Italian nationals.

The place of the internment was first Huntley Towers in Paget, and then in 1941, the internees were moved to St George’s – the females to a military barracks while the males went to Fort Cunningham on Paget Island.

From Christmas Day 1942 until the end of the Second World War, she was permitted to live under house arrest at her residence in Paget.

Of particular interest for us here in Bermuda is Dr Parker, the artist. It seems she was naturally, artistically gifted and from the age of 11 began to receive art instruction.

In 1916, she applied for admission to the Berlin Academy of Arts and Crafts, but was not admitted, as her work was judged too academic. Thereafter she studied languages, literature, history and psychology at Berlin University and in 1932, she received a PhD from Gottingen University. She nevertheless continued her art studies privately.

After the war, in 1945, Dr Parker started to give art classes at her home, Ocean View. Her classes provided the seed that germinated into the Bermuda Art Association in 1946 and the Bermuda Society of Arts in 1951. From 1947 until 1951, she also wrote all the art reviews for The Royal Gazette.

I understand that much of the material for this book was found in the Bermuda Government archives, as that is where most of Dr Parker’s documents are now held.

For those interested in Bermuda’s visual art history, this book is well researched, with numerous illustrations. It is a highly recommended and engaging read.