Heinz Koppel (1919 Berlin, Germany –1980 Cwmerfyn, Wales)
Heinz Koppel was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1919 and showed an early interest in art, taking private lessons while still at school. Following the rise of Nazism, his family removed to Prague for safety in 1933, and here, Koppel took private lessons from the painter Friedrich Feigl (who later also found safety in Britain). In 1935 Koppel travelled to London and briefly studied under Martin Bloch at his School for Contemporary Painting until, after losing their German citizenship, the Koppel family became 'stateless persons', living briefly in Italy and Antwerp, before gaining Costa Rican citizenship and eventually returning to Britain in 1938. The family settled near Pontypridd, Wales in 1939, and Koppel resumed lessons with Bloch in London. In 1941 he began teaching himself at the Burslem School of Art in Stoke-on-Trent and in 1942 exhibited at Jack Bilbo’s Modern Art Gallery in London.
In 1944 Koppel moved to the mining town of Dowlais in South Wales, to take up a position as art teacher in the Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement (a school for workers and their families), establishing the Merthyr Tydfil Art Society the same year. In 1947 he exhibited with the Welsh Arts Council, becoming head of the Dowlais Art Centre in 1948, and leading a Dowlais group exhibition at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, exhibiting concurrently in London at the Kingly Gallery and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. In 1956 he returned to the capital, exhibiting at Helen Lessore's Beaux Art Gallery (1958, 1960, 1963) and participating in group shows at Ben Uri Gallery (1946, 1960). He taught at Hornsey (1960) and Camberwell Schools of Art (1960-63), Liverpool College of Art (1964), and at the Slade School of Fine Art, before returning to Aberystwyth, where he spent his final years. His last exhibition was at the Oriel Gallery, Cardiff in 1978. Heinz Koppel died in London, England in 1980. A retrospective was held at the Gillian Jason Gallery, London in 1988 and at the Berlin Centrum Judaicum in 2010.
