Drawing on his Expressionist roots, Bloch's painting powerfully conveys emotion through colour. Originally trained as an architect, afterwards studying drawing under Lovis Corinth, Bloch exhibited at the Paul Cassirer Gallery and co-founded an art school in Berlin. Arriving in London via Denmark in 1934, he ran The School of Contemporary Painting (1936-39) with fellow painter, Australian-born Roy de Maistre; his pupils included émigré cousins Heinz Koppel and Harry Weinberger. Bloch exhibited in the 1938 exhibition of Twentieth-Century German Art in London, and held a solo London show in 1939. Following release from internment (1940-41) at Huyton Camp, outside Liverpool, and Sefton Camp on the Isle of Man, Bloch became an influential tutor at Camberwell School of Art, teaching the distinguished colourist, Gillian Ayres, amongst others. Bloch made numerous artworks as an internee, including the wonderfully surreal painting Miracle in the Internment Camp in which the daily diet of herring is shown transmogrified into a dish of mermaids, with a number of artist internees seated expectantly around the table. Ben Uri's claustrophobic depiction of boats in a crowded harbour was painted in Denmark after Bloch fled Nazi Germany in 1934. Despite the traumatic experience of flight, it is full of energy and colour. Drawing on German expressionism, he pares down form and conveys emotion through the use of heightened colour, compressing the perspective into a single, suffocating plane.
Interned Artists: Ben Uri and the 80th Anniversary of Internment
Forthcoming exhibition