Limehouse Cut
Draughtsman and etcher Nathaniel (né Napthali) Kornbluth was a second-generation immigrant, born to orthodox Polish-Jewish parents in London's East End on 25 October 1914. Owing to parental opposition to his chosen career as an artist, he worked in the wholesale menswear ‘rag’ trade during the day, while studying art at evening classes variously at Hackney Technical School (1933), the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1934-7), under W. P. Robbins, Paul Drury and James Fitton, where he specialised in etching, and at the Cass School of Art in the 1970s. He participated in mixed exhibitions at the East End Academy from the 1930s, as well as at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and had solo exhibitions at Campbell & Franks (1980), Sir John Cass (1986), and the Lamont Gallery (1988). Much of his subject matter is inspired by his own East End neighbourhood, often featuring the hidden canals and industrial riversides of east London. In his later years, he lived in northwest London, where he died on 18 April 1997. His work is held in public collections including: the British Museum, The Guildhall Library, the National Maritime Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris, and the New York City Library.
