Ben Uri Gallery and Museum company logo
Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Homepage
  • What's on
  • About Ben Uri
  • Exhibitions
  • Collections
  • Research Unit
  • Museum Partnerships
  • Essays / Catalogues
  • BU TV
  • Podcasts
  • Bookshop
  • Kids Programme
  • Arts and Mental Health
  • Bloomberg Connects
  • Archives
  • Support Us
  • Contact Us
  • FAQ
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
Cart
0 items £
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
Menu
Mark Gertler and the Whitechapel Boys
Paintings from the Luke Gertler Bequest & Selected Important UK Collections

Mark Gertler and the Whitechapel Boys : Paintings from the Luke Gertler Bequest & Selected Important UK Collections

Forthcoming exhibition
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Press release
  • Virtual Exhibition
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Mark Gertler, Rabbi and Rabbitzin, 1914

Mark Gertler

Rabbi and Rabbitzin, 1914
watercolour and pencil on paper
48.8 x 37.6 cm
and dated (upper right): Mark Gertler 1914
Photo: Bridgeman images
Three years out of the Slade, Gertler’s work became increasingly experimental. Rabbi and Rabbitzin, executed on the eve of the First World War, captures the tension between the traditional way...
Read more
Three years out of the Slade, Gertler’s work became increasingly experimental. Rabbi and Rabbitzin, executed on the eve of the First World War, captures the tension between the traditional way of life depicted and the incipient warfare which threatens to overwhelm it. The concentrated, almost claustrophobic domestic interior with the scrubbed kitchen table and simple meal typify Jewish East End life of the period. The simplification of the figures and the still life objects seen from different viewpoints reflect Gertler’s awareness of Cézanne, while the treatment of the dresser and crockery shows the influence of Cubism. The presence of a grid (common Slade practice for squaring up the picture for transfer to canvas) indicates that Gertler planned a painting of the composition. A companion drawing, Rabbi and Rabbitzin with Fish is in the British Museum.

The focus of the work is the relationship between the man and wife – without the title we would not know they are Rabbi and Rebbetzin – yoked together and anchored to their spartan surroundings. Their huge eyes increase their emotive appeal, while their enlarged hands, as in Gertler’s Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1913, Glynn Vivian, Swansea), indicate suffering and a life that has known hardship. The picture, as a contemporary reviewer noted, also evokes the wider history of the Jewish diaspora: ‘A man and a woman with all the history of an oppressed people behind them […] the incisive and unflinching design […] controlled without loss to their humanity’.

Close full details

Provenance

Acquired in 2002 by private treaty through Sotheby's with the assistance of Art Fund, HLF, V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund, Pauline and Daniel Auerbach, Sir Michael and Lady Heller, Agnes and Edward Lee, Hannah and David Lewis, David Stern, Laura and Barry Townsley, Della and Fred Worms and anonymous donors

Bought by Sir Thomas Beecham and Lady Cunard, 1915, from the artist at his Hampstead studio for £10; St John Hutchinson; by descent to Lord Hutchinson of Lullington; Sotheby's 3 July 2002; acquired for £61,500 from Sotheby’s by the Trustees of the Ben Uri Gallery with a contribution of £16,500 from the Art Fund (including £23,000 from the London Projects Committee and additional support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Resource/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and various private benefactors.

Exhibitions

Mark Gertler;Mark Gertler: Memorial Exhibition;Mark Gertler: A New Perspective;Mark Gertler Display Room;Mark Gertler: Paintings and Drawings;The Search for Identity: Immigrant Artists in Early Twentieth-century British art;New English Art Club (53rd exhibition);Meisterwerke Englische Malerei aus drei Jahrhunderten;The Mark Gertler Memorial Exhibition

Literature

Noel Carrington, ed., "Mark Gertler: Selected Letters" (London: Rupert Hart-Davies, 1965), p. 84; John Woodeson, "Mark Gertler: Biography of a Painter, 1891-1939" (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972), pp. 127, 169, 184, 339-340, 365, pl. 15, Sarah MacDougall "Mark Gertler" (London: John Murray, 2002), pp. 121, 123-124.; Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, eds., 'Out of Chaos: Ben Uri; 100 Years in London' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015) pp. 42-43.
Share
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
11 
of  44

Related artists

  • David Bomberg

    David Bomberg

  • Horace Brodzky

    Horace Brodzky

  • Jacob Epstein

    Jacob Epstein

  • Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

    Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

  • Mark Gertler

    Mark Gertler

  • Jacob Kramer

    Jacob Kramer

  • Emmanuel Levy

    Emmanuel Levy

  • Bernard Meninsky

    Bernard Meninsky

  • Elie Nadelman

    Elie Nadelman

  • Jules Pascin

    Jules Pascin

  • Isaac Rosenberg

    Isaac Rosenberg

  • William Rothenstein

    William Rothenstein

  • Max Sokol

    Max Sokol

  • Mark Wayner

    Mark Wayner

  • Clare Winsten

    Clare Winsten

  • Alfred Adrian Wolfe

    Alfred Adrian Wolfe

  • Alfred Wolmark

    Alfred Wolmark

Back to exhibition Overview
Back to exhibitions

Join our mailing list

Categories *

Sign up

* denotes required fields

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. If you are not happy with this, you can opt-out below. 

 

Read More

Homepage

What’s On

About

Contact

Support

Exhibitions

Collections

Research Unit

Essays / Catalogues

Loans 

 

BU TV

Podcasts

Health

Kids

Press

 
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Youtube, opens in a new tab.
Pinterest, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Artsy, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email
Privacy Policy
Accessibility policy
Manage cookies
Copyright © 2023 Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
Site by Artlogic

We use cookies to make our website work more efficiently, to provide you with more personalised services or advertising, and to analyse traffic on our website. For more information please read our cookies policy. If you don't agree to the use of our cookies, the quality of your experience of our website may be lessened.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences