England - Glehn Wilfrid De English 155 - Canvas Art Print Reproduction
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Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn (also sometimes spelt 'Wilfried') was an Impressionist British painter, elected to the Royal Academy in 1932.
Background
He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the oldest son of Simon B. Fleisher and Cecilia (Hoffheimer) Fleisher. The Fleishers were a Jewish family who emigrated from Memel in East Prussia during the 1830's. Benjamin's father and his uncle Moyer moved from Meadville, Pa. , to Philadelphia and founded the Fleisher Yarn Company. His mother was born in New York state.
Education
After Benjamin received the Ph. B.
from the University of Pennsylvania in 1889 he entered the family business of manufacturing worsted yarns and in time became treasurer of the company.
Career
Around the turn of the century he speculated heavily with both personal and company funds and ended by losing nearly $1 million. Disgraced and disowned by the Fleisher family, he took his wife and young children to Paris.
From Europe Fleisher traveled to Japan early in 1908, where he became associated with a small and struggling English-language newspaper published in Yokohama, the Japan Advertiser.
This unexpected success committed Fleisher to the profession of journalism. By moving the plant to Tokyo in 1913 he was able to concentrate on national and international news, rather than the more parochial concerns of the foreign community. In comparison with competing papers under British management, the Advertiser was described as "a typical live, hustling, newsy, pithy, adaptable and resourceful American newspaper" (Terry's Japanese Empire, 1914 ed. ).
By American standards, however, the format and editorial policy were fairly conservative, for Fleisher consciously took the New York Times as his model. The paper's professional treatment of economic news also gained the respect and advertising support of both the foreign and the Japanese business communities.
When Emperor Hirohito succeeded to the throne in 1928, Fleisher planned and published a handsomely bound special edition that was both an artistic and a commercial success.
In 1919 Fleisher started to publish the Trans-Pacific, first a monthly and later a weekly magazine covering the political, economic, social, and cultural events of East Asia.
Beginning in 1927 the Advertiser also published a yearbook of finance, industry, and commerce. Fleisher imported the first linotype machines used in Japan and developed a first-rate printing plant.
At the time of the great earthquakes of 1923 and again in an unexplained fire in 1930, his plant was burned to the ground; but in each case Fleisher succeeded in raising capital in Japan and the United States to rebuild.
Through a close relationship with the University of Missouri School of Journalism, particularly with its first dean Walter Williams, Fleisher induced a number of promising young journalists to work on the Advertiser; from that base many of them became prominent foreign correspondents.
In May 1933 the Missouri journalism school awarded its medal of honor to the Advertiser. Always concerned with promoting good relations between Japan and the United States, Fleisher became in 1917 a founder and first vice-president of the America-Japan Society of Tokyo.
He lavished great effort on a special America-Japan edition of the Advertiser published on July 9, 1922, and on another edition in 1931 on the occasion of the visit to Japan by Colonel and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh. At a testimonial dinner in New York, Elbert R. Gary, Charles R. Crane, and Thomas W. Lamont paid tribute to his service to American business interests.
After the Manchurian incident of 1931 Fleisher and his son Wilfrid, then managing editor of the Advertiser, found their work increasingly difficult.
In an effort to control the news, the military elements in power issued numerous press bans forbidding discussion of certain subjects. Respect for the divinity of the emperor became a fetish; on one occasion the Advertiser was forced to tender a formal apology because one letter in the caption under a picture of members of the imperial family had been blurred.
Police surveillance and pressure on both Japanese and American staff members became so intense that in October 1940 Fleisher finally sold out to the Japan Times, an English-language paper controlled by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fleisher then returned to the United States, after over three decades of residence in Japan.
Despite the amputation of a leg that confined him to a wheelchair in later years, he and his wife had enjoyed a position of leadership in the foreign community of Tokyo and an active social life that brought them into contact with Japanese at the highest levels.
He died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, of Burger's disease, and was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
By American standards, however, the format and editorial policy were fairly conservative, for Fleisher consciously took the New York Times as his model.
Always concerned with promoting good relations between Japan and the United States, Fleisher became in 1917 a founder and first vice-president of the America-Japan Society of Tokyo.
Views
From 1911 to 1913 he joined with Thomas F. Millard and Carl Crow in founding the China Press, a Shanghai newspaper reflecting an American point of view.
Connections
On March 26, 1896, he married Marie Blanche Blum, whose family lived in France.
After returning to the United States, Fleisher and his wife lived in Beverly Hills, Calif. , until her death; he then moved to Washington, D. C. , near his three children: Wilfrid, Marion, and Simone.