Portraits — Expressionist and Surreal features 23 paintings and drawings, including an experimental series of portrait heads, surreal figures and large-scale thematic works, the majority probably completed as a result of Metzger’s attendance at composition classes taught by David Bomberg between 1945 and 1953. By the early 1950s, Metzger had developed ‘a real closeness with Bomberg’. Indeed, Bomberg ‘became a form of father figure’ for Metzger, who felt that their shared Polish-Jewish origins meant that ‘there was so much that brought us together’. In 1953 Metzger initiated the Borough Bottega exhibiting society (a successor to the earlier, disbanded Borough Group), as a way of supporting Bomberg and disseminating his thinking and practice more widely, also organising and participating in its first exhibition at the Berkeley Galleries, London, later the same year.
Portraits - Expressionist and Surreal: Becoming Gustav Metzger: Uncovering The Early Years, 1945-59
Forthcoming exhibition
