Metadata : Photocopies of correspondence, personal documents, photographs and press cuttings with or relating to Mark Gertler
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
- 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 9217
- Title:
- Photocopies of correspondence, personal documents, photographs and press cuttings with or relating to Mark Gertler
- Title (official language):
- Photocopies of correspondence, personal documents, photographs and press cuttings with or relating to Mark Gertler
- Creator/accumulator:
- Gertler, Mark
- Date(s):
- 1907/1985
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 1 box
- Scope and content:
- This collection contains photocopies of correspondence to and from Mark Gertler (1911-1939), and his father Louis Gertler (1907-1909). The correspondence involves many of Gertler's close friends and patrons, especially Dorothy Brett, Gilbert Cannan, Richard Carline, Edward Marsh, VS Pritchett and Lytton Strachey. Their help and encouragement are fully recorded. There is no correspondence here with Dora Carrington but she is frequently the subject of the letters and Gertler's love for her and the distress caused by her are reflected in the letters. Gertler's health is another constant subject in his correspondence. There are many references to his paintings, in particular, 'Merry-Go-Round' (Now held by Tate Gallery. Reference: T03846), 'The Bathing', 'Circus', 'Daffodils' and several portraits of his mother. The documents include a photocopy of his birth certificate, typescript 'First Memories' by Gertler and a summons served in 1913 after Gertler and Augustus John were arrested for getting drunk at the Café Royal. Accompanied by a file of correspondence sent to and from Luke Gertler about the locations of paintings by Mark Gertler (1964-1968), as well as photocopies of personal documents, catalogues and press cuttings, relating to Mark Gertler
- Administrative/biographical history:
- 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, Louis
- Gertler, Mark
- Subject terms:
- Art--Artists
- Access, restrictions:
- Open
- Finding aids:
- Online catalogue.
- Reference number:
- TGA 9217
- Title:
- Photocopies of correspondence, personal documents, photographs and press cuttings with or relating to Mark Gertler
- Title (official language):
- Photocopies of correspondence, personal documents, photographs and press cuttings with or relating to Mark Gertler
- Creator/accumulator:
- Gertler, Mark
- Date(s):
- 1907/1985
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 1 box
- Scope and content:
- This collection contains photocopies of correspondence to and from Mark Gertler (1911-1939), and his father Louis Gertler (1907-1909). The correspondence involves many of Gertler's close friends and patrons, especially Dorothy Brett, Gilbert Cannan, Richard Carline, Edward Marsh, VS Pritchett and Lytton Strachey. Their help and encouragement are fully recorded. There is no correspondence here with Dora Carrington but she is frequently the subject of the letters and Gertler's love for her and the distress caused by her are reflected in the letters. Gertler's health is another constant subject in his correspondence. There are many references to his paintings, in particular, 'Merry-Go-Round' (Now held by Tate Gallery. Reference: T03846), 'The Bathing', 'Circus', 'Daffodils' and several portraits of his mother. The documents include a photocopy of his birth certificate, typescript 'First Memories' by Gertler and a summons served in 1913 after Gertler and Augustus John were arrested for getting drunk at the Café Royal. Accompanied by a file of correspondence sent to and from Luke Gertler about the locations of paintings by Mark Gertler (1964-1968), as well as photocopies of personal documents, catalogues and press cuttings, relating to Mark Gertler
- Administrative/biographical history:
- 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, Louis
- Gertler, Mark
- Subject terms:
- Art--Artists
- Access, restrictions:
- Open
- Finding aids:
- Online catalogue.
