David Bomberg 1890-1957
Benchers Hall, Inner Temple, 1947
charcoal on paper
47 x 60 cm
framed: 61 x 75 x 3 cm
framed: 61 x 75 x 3 cm
signed (lower left): 'Bomberg 47'
2015-02
© Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, courtesy of the David Bomberg estate
Photo: Bridgeman images
Bomberg remarked, ‘There is no fixed way in which a line goes, but there is a relationship between lines’. This is one of a series of drawings of the Inns...
Bomberg remarked, ‘There is no fixed way in which a line goes, but there is a relationship between lines’. This is one of a series of drawings of the Inns of Court that he completed in the mid- to late forties during the period when he began his career as a highly influential teacher. Towards the end of the war he took over a post as drawing master at the Bartlett School of Architecture prior to his appointment at the Borough Polytechnic (1946–53) where he taught Gustav Metzger, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff among many others. Bomberg’s teaching also strengthened and informed his own work. Here he uses strong, fluid charcoal strokes to trace the outline of the building to evoke a sense of mass – an important concept in both his practice and his teaching.
Provenance
presented from private collection, 2015Exhibitions
2015 No Set Rules: A Century of Selected Works from the Schlee Collection, Southampton, and the Ben Uri Collection, London, Ben Uri Gallery
2019 Friends and Influences: Auerbach, Freud, Kitaj, Kossoff, Bomberg; Chagall, Soutine, Marevna, Ben Uri Gallery
2021 Becoming Gustav Metzger: Uncovering the Early Years, 1945-59, Ben Uri Gallery & Museum
Literature
Nicola Baird, ed., Becoming Gustav Metzger: Uncovering the Early Years 1945-59 (London: Ben Uri Research Unit, 2021), p. 40
Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, Bomberg (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2017) p. 170
Sarah MacDougall, ed., No Set Rules: A Century of Selected Works from the Schlee Collection, Southampton, and the Ben Uri Collection, London (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015), pp. 38-39
