Painter, etcher, miniaturist, lithographer, woodcut engraver and teacher Amy Julia Drucker was born in Hampstead, London, England in 1873 to German-Jewish émigré parents. She trained at St John’s Wood and Lambeth Schools of Art, then maintained a studio in Bloomsbury, later studying sculpture at the Central School (where she befriended younger artist Clare Winsten (née Birnberg), c. 1910. Her first major commission was from Queen Mary for an ivory miniature of the young Duke of Gloucester. She also lived in Paris, where she also studied at the Académie Colarossi and exhibited at the Paris Salon. She exhibited extensively both in Britain and abroad throughout her career in groups shows including at the Royal Academy (1899-1946), the Royal Hibernian Academy (1936), the Whitechapel Art Gallery (Jewish Art and Antiquities, 1906; and Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements, 1914), the Royal Glasgow Institute (1907), and Ben Uri Gallery (1937), as well as with the Society of Women Artists (1908-30) and the Women’s International Art Club (1940). She became known for her portraits and genre scenes including atmospheric paintings of London (particularly East End Coster) life. During the First World War she served in the Land Army and her works included a multi-figure painting entitled Air Raid Shelter (1916, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum).
She travelled extensively in the Far East, South America, depicting peasants and local subjects, and Abyssinia (Ethiopia), where she was commissioned to paint a life-size portrait of the Emperor, H. M. Haile Selassie, and spent several months in Palestine in 1920. She held solo exhibitions in Jerusalem, Shanghai, Peking Buenos Aires, Lima and Panama and taught Japanese colour printing in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India and at the Jerusalem School of Art, as well as taking private pupils in London. During the Second World War she worked as a factory hand and night-watchman.
Amy Drucker died in London, England in November 1951. In 1952 a memorial exhibition was held at Ben Uri Gallery, where a bi-annual prize (of £10) was twice awarded in her memory to a promising young Jewish artist: Henry Sanders (1952) and Alfred Harris (1954). Her work is in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Royal Holloway (the University of London), Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust (Brighton & Hove) and the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, as well as in collections in China, South America and Israel.
