David Bomberg (1890-1957)

Calle San Pedro, Cuenca, 1934 .

Oil on Canvas, 67.01 x 52 cm

Courtesy of Osborne Samuel Gallery

Refugees from Tsarist Persecution

A small number of refugees arrived at the end of the 19th century, part of the large wave escaping from Tsarist persecution. Alfred Wolmark’s family fled the anti-Jewish pogroms in Warsaw in 1883 and Alfred stayed, working as an artist and teacher until he died, without the recognition he deserved, in 1961. Mark Gertler and David Bomberg, both key figures in the evolution of British modern and contemporary art (Bomberg taught both Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff as well as the auto destructive artist, Gustav Metzger), were born in Britain in the early 1890s, the children of recent Polish Jewish immigrants. Both struggled for the recognition that came after their deaths. Still to be recognized is Clara Klinghoffer, born in Poland in 1900, who arrived in England in 1903. Exhibiting from 1919, she was much admired by luminaries such as Jacob Epstein, and J.B Manson, a curator at the Tate, which acquired her work. 

Lucian Freud

Head of Bruce Bernard (1985)

Etching ,51 x 47 cm. Edition of 50
Courtesy Julian Page Gallery

From Ukraine

Hailing from Ukraine came Benard Meninsky in the year of his birth, 1891. Studying at the Slade with British art legends, William Roberts and Walter Sickert, Meninsky became one of the best represented artists in UK museums after his death in 1950, with 75 works in nearly 50 public collections. Also arriving from Ukraine, but a decade later, were the parents of Leon Kossoff, fleeing from persecution. Leon was born in 1926, and would become a leading figure in the renowned School of London group from the fifties on. 

Fleeing the Nazis

A much larger contingent of refugees fled Europe in the 1930s in the face of Nazi genocidal policies. In 1933 came Lucian Freud, another future School of London star, aged just 11 with his parents from Germany as, aged 15, did Paul Feiler, to become a prominent member of the St Ives School in the post-war years. In that year, the first of this exhibition’s represented photographers, the non-Jewish but anti-fascist Bill Brandt and the communist spy, Edith Tudor Hart, arrived from Germany and Austria respectively, followed the next year by German-born Kurt Hutton, a pioneer of photojournalism. Brandt’s brother, the surrealist painter Rolf Brandt, also arrived in 1933, becoming an influential teacher in the 50s, 60s and 70s. As the intensity of Nazi persecution accelerated in Europe, the wave of artistic talent finding refuge in the UK continued. In the 1930s, Naum Gabo, a Russian Jewish avant-garde artist, escaped Nazi Germany where he taught at the famous Bauhaus and left for Paris and then the UK, settling in 1936 in St Ives – where he influenced the direction of artists John Wells and Peter Lanyon, and the development of British constructivism. Leaving Germany in 1933 aged 32, with no money, Social Democrat lawyer Fred Uhlman was fortunate enough to meet and marry wealthy British heiress, Diana Croft (daughter of Lord Croft) and was able to continue painting unpopulated, mystical, slightly escapist landscapes until his death in 1985. 

Henry Inlander was born in Austria in 1925. Inlander’s family fled Nazi Germany in 1935 for Italy and then Great Britain in 1938, where he enrolled at St Martin’s School of Art in 1939. After the war he became a British subject and continued his art education at various London art schools until 1952. Inlander is predominantly known for his playfully expressionistic landscapes that blur the line between reality and imagination. A member of The London Group, he exhibited regularly with Roland, Browse and Delbanco and the Ben Uri gallery. In 1956, (the 300th anniversary of the readmission of Jews to England under Oliver Cromwell), Inlander featured in the exhibition Jewish Artists in England, 1656–1956, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. His paintings are represented in multiple public collections worldwide, including the Arts Council Collection, Government Art Collection, Tate, Yale Center for British Art and the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum. He died of a heart attack after partying vigorously at Camberwell Art School’s 1983 Christmas party.

Naum Gabo (1890-1977)

The Lyre Bird (Opus Four), 1950 Monotype, 15.9 x 13.7cm.
Courtesy Austin Desmond Fine Art.

Kindertransport

Some of these artist refugees were children who benefitted from the charitable Kindertransport initiative in 1938/9, which marks its 85th anniversary this year. The Kindertransport scheme helped them to escape the clutches of the Nazis, but mostly and sadly without their parents. In 1938, Austrian born Peter Kinley was evacuated to England on Kindertransport aged 12, later to become a significant member of the British contemporary art scene, while Peter Schmidt was just seven when he fled Germany with his Jewish mother in 1938, becoming musical director of the groundbreaking Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition at the ICA in 1968 and collaborating with the likes of artist/musician Brian Eno and Mark Boyle who created psychedelic light shows for Pink Floyd performances. Standard versions of Britain’s leading living contemporary artist, Frank Auerbach’s life, say he was rescued by Kindertransport and sent to London, aged eight, while his parents both fell victim to the concentration camps. But he has recently suggested it was the English writer, Iris Origo, who spent the war rescuing children in Italy from Mussolini, who helped him. Either way his arrival in England saved his life.

Peter Kinley (1926-1988)

Standing Figure.

Oil on canvas50.6 x 41 cm

Courtesy Osborne Samuel.

By contrast, the expressionist painter Karl Weschke did not arrive in the UK from Germany until 1945 when, aged 20, he was interned as a Prisoner of War before being released to make his mark in the St Ives colony of artists. Another significant post-war arrival was Hungarian born Magda Cordell (b 1921), who survived the Holocaust to escape to Palestine and work for British intelligence, then moving to London, where influenced by the art brut of Jean Dubuffet, she became a rare female presence amongst the avant-garde and a core member of the Independent Group of artists in the 1950s. The works are submitted by galleries who exhibit at British Art Fair and private collectors closely associated with the fair and are for sale.