F. C. von Hausen. The Lady With Red Hair, oil on canvas, 40 by 50 inches.

F. C. von Hausen. The Lady With Red Hair, Palm Beach, 1950. Oil on canvas, 40 by 50 inches.

F. C. von Hausen was Palm Beach’s, and possibly Florida’s, most distinguished portrait artist. Over a span of fifty years von Hausen painted the wealthy, the famous, the beautiful and the glamorous of Palm Beach. Born in Germany, the son of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Hausen, a lawyer with offices in Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg, Russia, von Hausen began drawing at an early age, trained at the Vienna Royal Academy, and at the age of twenty, left Austria for the United States just as World War I erupted.

In Maine he met and married a Hungarian girl, Maria Kubek, the daughter of the Reverend Emil Kubek, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Daramascotta. Moving to Christmas Cove, Maine, von Hausen built a studio and earned enough money to purchase a Lincoln touring car. Someone suggested that Palm Beach would be a good place to winter and that people of wealth and culture would welcome him with commissions. They did.

When von Hausen moved to Palm Beach there were alligators on the island and people had to watch out for snakes on Worth Avenue. It was on Worth Avenue in 1922, where Bonwit Teller’s now stands, that von Hausen built his first studio. No shops existed. A row of non-chic stores fringed a small part of Lake Worth. County Road was a dirt way and railway tracks ran across a loose planked wooden bridge to serve Henry Flagler’s Royal Poinciana Hotel. West Palm Beach was a pioneer town with a small ferry moving wealthy visitors to Flagler’s Hotel.

Von Hausen moved his studio to 201 Indian Road where it was described as, “a joyful place to visit, the essence of the old Vienna, with a touch of Edwardian elegance.” Von Hausen painted portraits of Atwater Kent, Mrs. Dodge, E. F. Hutton, Mark Honeywell and Albert Einstein. His painting of Henry M. Flagler hangs at the Flagler Museum; his Addison Mizner portrait is at the Palm Beach Historical Society; and his portrait of Edward Stotesbury, at the Everglades Club. Stotesbury, a J.P. Morgan partner, became a great friend. He not only sat for portraits, but spent spare time watching von Hausen paint others. Mrs. Stotesbury, at her Mirasol estate, a leader of Palm Beach society, was equally fascinated by von Hausen’s work. The financial genius von Hausen most admired was Edward Hutton, who built the chateau occupied by his former wife, Marjorie Post.

For years von Hausen swam long distances, often with a Palm Beach artist, Rachel Wells, as his companion. Wells commented, “When he painted, I would often sit at his feet, and he seemed a god to me. The finesse, the wonderful color sense, the skill in form and design, have never left him. I learned so much.” In 1973 when a retrospective of his work was held in Palm Beach, von Hausen was still active every day in his garden home and studio on Indian Road. He remained alive to modern trends and could paint the non objective if he chose. But he didn’t choose. He remained unabashedly a realist, with romantic touches, and he believed in reproducing the human likeness with as much as possible of the inner spirit revealed. *Abridged from an article by Lawrence Dame, Palm Beach Post Times, April 29, 1973.

Born: Dresden, Germany.
Education: University of Vienna; Kaiserkoeniglich Academie Kunst, (Vienna Royal Academy of Art.) Membership: Society of The Four Art; Palm Beach Art League, Florida Federation of Art.
Exhibits: Palm Beach Art League, March 1935, portraits, Edward F. Hutton, Edward T. Stotesbury; Society of The Four Arts, Annual Exhibit, March 1938, member of jury of selection; Society of The Four Arts, Palm Beach, 7th Annual Members Show, January 1945, portrait, Dr. Tage Teisen; Society of The Four Arts, 8th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1945-January 1946, portrait; Society of The Four Arts, 9th Annual Members Exhibit, December 1946-January 1947, portrait, Little girl, Durie.
Directory: Listed in the West Palm Beach City Directory, 1933, 1952-1956, as an artist with a studio at 309 Worth Ave, Palm Beach in 1933, and later at 201 Indian Road, Palm Beach.

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