Elfriede Fischinger died quietly in her sleep at her home on Thursday, May13, 1999. She was born September 17, 1910, in Gelnhausen near Frankfurt,Germany. She attended the prestigious College of Design in Offenbach, andin 1931 one of her abstract textile designs won a prize and was publishedin a magazine as well as exhibited in Berlin, where she met her futurehusband, animator and painter Oskar Fischinger. They were married in 1933and she worked on many of his subsequent films. In 1936 they emigrated toHollywood where Oskar worked briefly for Paramount, MGM, and Disney. Duringthe 1940s, Elfriede supported their family of five children as a fashiondesigner for Mascot Studios, Susie's Sweaters, and Andrea of Beverly Hills.After the death of her husband in 1966, she traveled widely lecturing withOskar's paintings and films at such venues as the Montreal Expo of 1967,the 1976 Ottawa Animation Festival, and the Venice Biennale, 1982. Shereceived a gold medal from the President of Italy and Lifetime AchievementAwards from the Royal Academy of the Netherlands, the InternationalAnimation Society, ASIFA, and Women in Film. She was a juror for theMontpelier Film Festival and the American Film Institute. She publishedhalf a dozen articles in magazines and art exhibition catalogs, andappeared in several television documentaries including the CBS Camera Threeprofile of Oskar Fischinger, the British ABSTRACT CINEMA, and the GermanLONGING FOR COLOR, about the development of various film color processes inthe 1930s. She received a grant from the National Endowment for theHumanities which allowed her and her daughter Barbara to restore anunfinished film of Oskar's from the 1940s. She is survived by two sons andtwo daughters as well as several grandchildren and great grandchildren.Burial will be next to her husband in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
