Fred Lowen

Fred Lowen AM (1919–2005), born Fritz Karl Heinz Lowenstein, was a German-Australian designer and an inductee into the Design Institute of Australia Hall of Fame.

Biography Lowen was born as Fritz Karl Heinz Loewenstein in 1919 in Upper Silesia, then a part of Germany. Being Jewish, he fled Germany in 1938 to Belgium. In May 1940 he again fled the Nazis and made it to England. From there he was transported to Australia on the HMT Dunera arriving in Sydney on 6 September 1940. His father was Karl Loewenstein, later deported to Minsk Ghetto and Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Starting in September 1945, Lowen designed and made wooden salad bowls, trays and lazy susans with Ernest Rodeck under the name of FLER. the Aluminium Shell Chair, mahogany fold-out extension table and cane back chairs. The Narvik dining and lounge ranges were released in 1961, He wrote an autobiography Fred Lowen: Dunera Boy, Furniture Designer, Artist, which was published in 2001. He died in Melbourne in 2005.

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