Robert Fabe 

Self Portrait
Robert Fabe (1917—2004)
Ink and wash on tan paper, 1943
Gift of the Artist
66.4840

A beloved Cincinnati artist best known for cityscapes of his hometown, Robert Fabe studied first with his father, a talented amateur, and then at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, where he taught some years later.  After graduation, he studied with Herman Wessel, John Weis and Meyer Abel. In 1939 he also studied at the Art Students League in New York with Arnold Blanch, to whom he served as a Mural Assistant, George Grosz, and Raphael Soyer. He returned to Cincinnati in 1940. Fabe joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati Department of Design, Architecture and Art in 1958, retiring as Professor of Fine Arts in 1987.  Fabe entered the Armed Services in 1941 as Infantry and Combat Engineer and served in Normandy, Belgium, and Germany until his discharge in 1945. He was moved to create drawings which  include a self-portrait, a German soldier poised for battle, and survivors of Buchenwald concentration camp. Fabe participated in the liberation of this camp in 1945.  In 1999, he wrote about “the sudden rush of memories that these long forgotten drawings have brought to life after being hidden for over 50 years…these sketches were done, trying to capture the sights, sounds and terror I witnessed in Normandy and Belgium…even now it is not easy to accept that I was trained for a life of creativity and then suddenly pressed into one of total destruction…I hope that no one else will have to witness what I did.”