Maurice Mancini Roith was born into a Jewish family in Brest-Litovsk, then in the Russian empire (now Brest, Belarus) in 1900 and after immigrating to England with his family was raised in London's East End, later becoming naturalised. He worked as a scene painter at Covent Garden Opera House while studying part-time at the Westminster School of Art under Walter Sickert and Bernard Meninsky, afterwards dividing his time between business and painting. In 1936 an oil entitled 'Morning' by 'M. Roith' was included in the Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists at Ben Uri Gallery in London, initiating his relationship with the gallery, and ten years later a nude, listed as by 'Mancini Roith' was exhibited at Ben Uri's 1946 exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Contemporary Jewish Artists. For several years he maintained a studio at Chichester House in the village of Ditchling, East Sussex, at the foot of the South Downs, and his ouevre included portraiture, self-portraiture, landscapes (including of Sussex), interiors and the still life, broadly handled, often in a colourful palette.
Maurice Mancini Roith died in London, England in 1958. A posthumous exhibition of his work, organised by Ben Uri, was held aboard the 'Tattershall Castle' on the River Thames in 1979. Barry Fealdman, reviewing the exhibition in the Jewish Chronicle observed, 'The subjects include landscapes of Britain, France and Italy painted with authority and a genuine feeling for pictorial values. Roith deserves to be better known'. His work was also included at Picture Fairs at Ben Uri Gallery in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, and is represented in the Ben Uri Collection.
