Born in Edgbaston, the daughter of a draper, Mrs Robert Solomon (née Ethel Cohen, 1888–1985), went on to become a highly influential figure as Chair of the Women’s Federation of British Zionists (1920), and with her husband, Robert, who became President of the Jewish National Fund in England, co-founded Whittingham Farm School in 1939 to educate German and Austrian refugee children. It was Alfred Wolmark, who had first painted her in 1909, who introduced her to Ben Uri in the 1930s; between c. 1943 and 1966, she was Chair and helped to safeguard the collection during the Second World War. She was an active member of the post-war Arts Committee and under her Chairmanship, the Society's activities also greatly expanded to include not only lectures but also art classes, drama and music.This portrait was commissioned by the Ben Uri Art Society in 1945 as a prize in a portrait painting competition and was one of a pair of two of its most prominent members (the other being of Cyril Ross). Kemeny worked within the Realist tradition: the thinly applied paint and careful precision are reminiscent of the Euston Road School of Painting, presided over by William Coldstream, with the muted palette offset by touches of colour reflecting the austerity of Britain in the postwar period. In 1947 A.K.S. of the 'Jewish Chronicle' described the portrait as 'a diligent and precise exercise in tone values and a highly successful picture'.