Left: The Fruit Sorters, Mark Gertler, 1914. Oil on canvas. Courtesy, Leicester City Museum Service.
Penelope Parkin visited ventured into the capital to take in this stunning exhibition.
The Ben Uri Gallery, which celebrates Anglo Jewish cultural heritage past, present and future, plays host to 'A New Perspective' until December 1, the first exhibition of artist Mark Gertler's (1891-1939) work for a decade.
Gertler's masterpiece is widely considered to be 'The Merry-Go-Round', a bold, modernist portrait that depicts the fear and hysteria of war. Despite this, the Ben Uri exhibition successfully gives us a wider glimpse of the artist's range and character.
Right: The Artist's Wife/ Marjorie Gertler, Mark Gertler, 1933. Pastel on brown paper. Courtesy, Kendal, Abbot Hall Art Gallery.
In fact, if there were to be a common theme amongst this extraordinary range of still lifes, portraits, figures, nudes and landscapes in styles ranging from realism to cubism it would most likely be Gertler's main desire, to express himself and 'be personal'.
Gertler's early work displays a knack for capturing human interaction. 'The Artists Family/A Playful Scene' shows his sister Sophie poking his mother's ear with a knitting needle while she sits asleep in front of a glass of iced tea.
Left: Rabbi and Rabbitzin, Mark Gertler, 1914. Watercolour and pencil on paper. Courtesy, Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art.
The Ben Uri's newly acquired Rabbi and Rabbitzin echoes such familial togetherness. The touching domestic scene depicts a Jewish rabbi and his wife, huddled together at their kitchen table, arms linked against the the horrors of persecution.
Here, as in 'The Artist's Mother, 1913', the characters' large hands, indicate 'suffering and a life that has known hardship'. The prominent rounded loaf, kettle, cup and saucer featured are also said to show Gertler's awareness of Cezanne.
Right: Talmudic Discussion, Mark Gertler, 1911. Oil on canvas. Courtesy, Private Collection.
Depiction of female characters is a central theme in Gertler's work and echoes the importance of his relationship with his mother. For instance, it is thought very unusual to have depicted the female rabitzin in this period.
The later array of colourful female portraits and nudes Gertler painted throughout the 1920s and 30s show a much greater freedom with the female form, vivid colours replacing his initial browns and greys e.g. The Coster Woman, 1923.
Left: The Coster Woman, Mark Gertler, 1923. Oil on canvas. Courtesy, Luke Gertler.
A popular character amongst the Bloomsbury Group, Gertler's work was much praised by artists such as Walter Sickert, Vanessa Bell and Henry Moore. 'The Creation Of Eve', 1914, made a great impression on DH Lawrence, who used it as the basis for a picture of the same name in 'The Rainbow':
'Adam lay asleep as if suffering, and God, a dim, large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward His unveiled hand; an Eve, a small, vivid, naked, female she, was issuing, like a flame towards the hand of God, from the torn side of Adam', while a bird 'on a bough overhead, lift [ed] its wings for flight'.
Right: The Creation of Eve, Mark Gertler, 1914. Oil on canvas. Courtesy, Private Collection.
Two self-portraits that span the exhibition provide a particularly interesting study. The early 1909-11 Self Portrait, in soft pencil on paper, reveals an innocently handsome, sensitive, wistful character.
In contrast the later 1920 Self Portrait in Oil shows a much more world weary, defensive looking pose. Nineteen years later, at the age of 48, Gertler committed suicide, a response to the pressures of marriage and fatherhood and uncertainty as to the direction and reception of his work.
