Metadata: Files of material sent to Luke Gertler, from Bernard Adams, Sarah MacDougal and others, relating to his father, Mark Gertler; notebook, sketches and artists materials used by Bernard Meninsky
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- Tate Archive
- Holding institution (official language):
- Tate Archive
- Postal address:
- Tate BritainMillbankLondonUnited KingdomSW1P 4RG
- Web address:
- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive
- Reference number:
- TGA 20038
- Title:
- Files of material sent to Luke Gertler, from Bernard Adams, Sarah MacDougal and others, relating to his father, Mark Gertler; notebook, sketches and artists materials used by Bernard Meninsky
- Title (official language):
- Files of material sent to Luke Gertler, from Bernard Adams, Sarah MacDougal and others, relating to his father, Mark Gertler; notebook, sketches and artists materials used by Bernard Meninsky
- Creator/accumulator:
- Meninsky, Bernard
- Gertler, Mark
- Date(s):
- 1907/2000
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 3 boxes
- Scope and content:
- The collection consists of research material relating to Mark Gertler collected by Bernard Adams including correspondence, reviews about exhibitions and books relating to Mark Gertler, and material collected for a possible biography about Gertler; Material relating to printed works about Gertler such as reviews of books, correspondence between Luke Gertler and Sarah McDougall, transcripts of letters collected by Noel Carrington for his publication and a script of 'Carrington'; Material of Gertler's including a copy of Gertler's 'First Memories' and a catalogue of his work; and art material relating to Bernard Meninsky including paint brushes, pencils, paint pallets, and a pair of glasses. The collection also has two notebooks from Bernard Meninsky one that contains two sketches and the other quotes and research notes.
- Archival history:
- All the items were kept by Luke Gertler after his father's death. Nora Meninksy gave the items related to Bernard Meninsky to Luke Gertler after her death.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Bernard Meninsky was born into a Jewish family in the Ukraine in 1891. The family moved to Liverpool when Meninsky was just a few months old. When still in his teens, Meninsky's skill and accuracy as a draughtsman brought him his first earnings from anatomical drawings for the Liverpool Medical School. At the same time, he studied at Liverpool School of Art winning the King's Medal and a scholarship to study at the Académie Julian, Paris, 1910-11. Between 1912-13 he studied at the Slade School of Art, helped by the Jewish Educational Society. In the first World War he was an official war artist (painting London scenes) and in 1919 he had his first, very successful, solo exhibition of Mother and Child drawings at the Goupil Gallery. These drawings were studies of his first wife, Margaret O'Connor, and their two children, David and Philip. In 1920, Margaret O'Connor died in childbirth a year after leaving her husband. Meninsky exhibited with the London Group from 1913 (becoming a member in 1919) and the New English Art Club from 1914 (a member from 1923). In 1930 an exhibition of his oils was held at St George's Gallery; he also exhibited at Zwemmer's Gallery and the Leger Gallery. His paintings of monumental figures and lyrical landscapes reflect the influence of Masaccio, Samuel Palmer and Picasso's neo-classicism. Meninsky also painted murals and decors for the ballet; he married a dancer, Nora Edwards, in 1927. In addition, he was an accomplished illustrator of books, for instance Milton's 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso', 1946. In 1948 he selected the exhibition, 'The Art of Drawing' for the Arts Council and wrote a substantial introductory essay for the catalogue. An influential teacher of drawing, he first taught at Gordon Craig's theatre school in Florence and at the Central School of Art and Craft, London. In 1920, he succeeded Sickert as teacher of life drawing at the Westminster School of Art. From 1940 to 1945 he taught at Oxford School of Art, and from 1945 he was instructor in drawing at the Central School. He took his own life in 1950. Nora Meninsky continued to promote her husband's work and assist in exhibitions until her death in 1991.
- Gertler was the son of Polish Jews and was brought up in Whitechapel in severe poverty until his father's furrier workshop became moderately successful. As a child he knew nothing of art until at the age of 14 his career was determined by the discovery of W. P. Frith's Autobiography in a secondhand bookshop. In 1906 he began attending art classes at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Gertler left the Polytechnic for financial reasons in 1907 and apprenticed himself to Clayton and Bell, a firm of glass painters. In 1908 he won a prize in a national art competition and, on the strength of this, successfully applied for financial assistance from the Jewish Educational Aid Society, using William Rothenstein as a referee. That autumn he entered the Slade School of Fine Art, where he was taught by Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer. He won a Slade scholarship in 1909, Slade prizes in 1910 and in 1912 was awarded a British Institution Scholarship. Amongst his contemporaries there were Stanley Spencer, C R Nevinson and Dora Carrington, with whom he had a long relationship. Gertler's prospects were additionally helped c. 1910-20 by his friendship with the civil servant and patron Edward Marsh. In 1914 he met D H Lawrence, John Middleton Murry, Lytton Strachey and Lady Ottoline Morrell. From 1915 he made many visits to her house, Garsington Manor and throughout his career made visits to France. Between 1912 and 1914 he was a member of the New English Art Club and he was elected to the London Group in 1915. He exhibited at the Chenil Galleries from 1912, the Goupil Gallery, where he had his first one-man show in 1921 and at the Leicester galleries. In 1911 'The Artist's Mother' (1911; London, Tate). was purchased by the Chantrey Bequest. His masterpiece entitled 'Merry-go-round' (1916; London, Tate), is a savage indictment of war. It portrays a mechanistic nightmare in which rows of serried figures spin forever. Dogged by tuberculosis (necessitating long periods in sanatoria), anxious about his work and depressed at his lack of success, he took his own life in 1939.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Gertler, Mark
- Meninsky, Bernard
- Subject terms:
- Art
- Art--Artists
- Correspondence
- Access, restrictions:
- Open
- Finding aids:
- Online catalogue.
- Yerusha Network member:
- AIM25
