According to family letters, one of my distant relatives, Julius SINGER was
professor of art first in Brno, then in Prague, making the move ca. 1910.
Also >from these family letters, I know that his mother was Sidonie nee
MOSCHKOWITZ. I'm not positive Sidonie was born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland
[formerly, Bielitz, Austrian Empire], but that's where her father had a
business which one of her brothers took over. The business passed to a
brother-in-law in turn, and was aryanized out of the Moschkowitz family in
1940. The family connection to my family is Jette Honigmann Moschkowitz, who
was born in Kepno Poland [then Kempen, Posen, Prussia] in 1825, and who died
in Vienna in 1908, where she had been living with her daughter Sidonie. One
of my ancestors was one of Jette's brothers. I know, mostly >from the same
set of family letters, plus inheritance documents >from Vienna, that Jette
had 6 children who lived to adulthood, and that Sidonie was born in 1858.

The women in my family did not generally marry much before their 20th
birthdays, so I would guess that Julius SINGER was not born before 1878. By
the time his family's mentioned in the letters I have, he was already an
adult living in Brno & his mother was living in Vienna, and his grandmother
with her. Thus he was not likely to have been born much after 1885. The
letters mention his profession as professor of art, and that his income >from
selling his art work exceeded that of his "day job".

The next piece of information I have is >from the autobiography of Max
HEITLINGER, an engineer married to one of Sidonie's nieces. Mrs. Nelly
MOSCHKOWITZ HEITLINGER was thus SINGER's first cousin. HEITLINGER managed to
emigrate with his wife and infant son to Australia, where his descendants
still live. In his 1984 autobiography he mentions that his cousin Julius
SINGER, formerly an artist, had also managed to emigrate, had settled in
London, where he made his living with an art gallery, and where HEITLINGER
visited him in the early 1960s. Using google, I've found a few references
to Julius Singer in the provenance of paintings up for auction.

I have also found illustrations of ex libris designed in Prague >from about
1910 to 1918 by a Julius SINGER. -They've come up for auction on online
auction sites. It would be nice to know if he is my relative. I also found
a reference to a museum in Germany holding one of his ex libris. They kindly
emailed me a .jpg, but admitted they had absolutely no biographical
information on SINGER & were quite happy to have scans of my family letters
mentioning him - not the information flow I had envisioned when I emailed. I
have emailed an art museum in Prague with an English web site, but received
no answer.

There is also an article on www.hagalil.com, in German, on the roll of Jews
in the Prague art scene. This mentions a group called "Concordia", of which
a Julius SINGER was a member. I found the author's snail address in Germany
and wrote him - in German - asking for information on SINGER, or references
to information on him, but received no answer.

I could use some advice on how to go about locating SINGER's death record in
London. I know that one can search indices online, but that's a very large
job & it would be nice to have an approximate date to start from.

I also need advice on Jews in the Prague art scene ca 1910-1920, to see if I
can get some biographical information on the SINGER who designed the ex
libris.

Thanks in advance!
Irene Newhouse
Kihei HI