Jacob Kramer 1892-1962
Portrait of Israel Zangwill, 1925
charcoal and white chalk on paper
47 x 43 cm
Framed: 74.5 x 64 cm
Framed: 74.5 x 64 cm
signed (lower right): 'Kramer'
1987-192
© The William Roberts Society, London
Photo: Bridgeman images
British author Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), the son of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants, schooled in Spitalfields, became known as 'the Jewish Dickens' or 'the Dickens of the Ghetto'. His best-known novel 'Children...
British author Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), the son of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants, schooled in Spitalfields, became known as 'the Jewish Dickens' or 'the Dickens of the Ghetto'. His best-known novel 'Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People' (1892) was highly influential and his play 'The Melting Pot' popularised this term to describe the American absorption of multi-national immigrants and was praised by President Roosevelt. Kramer's charcoal portrait head captures Zangwill in his penultimate year. Zangwill was the first President of the Ben Uri Society from 1921–24 and presided over the 'Grand Public Welcome' given for Glicenstein when he visited England the same year (his bronze of Zangwill was acquired for the Society in 1925). This exquisite depiction of the author drawn only a year before his death captures the same stern determination characteristic of Zangwill's portraits.
Provenance
purchasedExhibitions
1990 Ben Uri Highlights: Key Works and Figures, Ben Uri Art Society
2003 William Roberts & Jacob Kramer: The Tortoise and the Hare, Ben Uri Gallery - The London Jewish Museum of Art
2009 Homeless & Hidden 1: World Class Collection Homeless & Hidden, Ben Uri Gallery
Literature
William Roberts & Jacob Kramer The Tortoise and the Hare (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2003) p.27 (illus. included);
Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 64.
