Max Sokol 1895-1973
Portrait of A. Cherne
plaster
51 x 49 x 30
1987-260
Photo: Ben Uri Gallery
The Ben Uri records contain no clue to the identity of the sitter in this portrait bust, identified only as ‘A. Cherne’, however, he may be the Russian-Jewish businessman Abraham...
The Ben Uri records contain no clue to the identity of the sitter in this portrait bust, identified only as ‘A. Cherne’, however, he may be the Russian-Jewish businessman Abraham Cherne (c. 1888–1950), who is listed in the ‘naturalization [sic]’ section of The London Gazette (7 Aug 1931) at 152 Melrose Avenue, Cricklewood – an area densely settled by Jewish émigrés. >Sokol exhibited this work three times in 1943: firstly, at the important 'Artists Aid Jewry' (2-18 Feb) exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, jointly organised by the Jewish Cultural Club, the Free Austrian Movement and The Free German League of Culture, where it was listed as ‘no. 114, Portrait of Mr. Charne [sic]’; secondly, at the Royal Academy, as ‘no. 970, A Charne, Esq., head’; and thirdly, at The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Eighty-Second Annual Exhibition (2 Oct 1943–15 Jan 1944), as ‘A. Cherne, Esq., priced £80’. It was also shown at three Ben Uri exhibitions in 1945: the first of Contemporary Jewish Artists; the second of portraits, where it was correctly titled and attributed; at the third exhibition, commemorating Alfred Wolmark however, the bust was mistakenly attributed to Abraham Lozoff. This misattribution continued at the ‘Ben Uri Collection Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings’ in 1946 and the work was subsequently catalogued as by Lozoff in the 1994 catalogue, Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection; it has only recently been re-attributed to Sokol following the unearthing of the earlier archival evidence.