ISBN-13: 978-0900157479
This exhibition catalogue documents Roman Halter's artworks across a multitude of media for the first time, from stained-glass, to oil, to watercolour. It includes essays by Colin Wiggins, special projects' curator at London's National Gallery, and by Caroline Swash, a distinguished stained-glass historian and third-generation practitioner.
The exhibition examines the artistic career of architect, painter, designer and stained-glass innovator, Roman Halter.
Halter was born in 1927 in Chodecz, a small village in northern Poland, and was the seventh and youngest child of a traditional Jewish family. At the outbreak of war, in 1939, when Halter was 12, the family were deported to the Lodz Ghetto. It was during the horrors of this imprisonment that his grandfather, made Halter promise to tell the story of the Holocaust 'when' and not 'if' he survived. His grandfather's entreaty was a frequent refrain throughout Halter's long career as an artist and narrator of the atrocities.
The catalogue shows numerous examples of Halter's stained-glass and preparatory 'cartoons', revealing that he used his architectural skills and the intricacies of stained-glass as the foundation and structure for his paintings and drawings. Also included are watercolours he painted later in life recollecting his childhood in occupied Poland, as well as photographs of his design work for Leo Baeck College, London.
Published by Ben Uri, 2014. Hardback. With over 100 high-quality illustrations in colour.
