Benno Schotz was born to Jewish parents in Arensburg, then in the Russian Empire (now Kuressaare, Estonia), in 1891. He came to Glasgow in 1912, where he took classes in sculpture, and went on to become one of Scotland’s leading portrait sculptors.
Sculptor Benno Schotz was born to Jewish parents, Jacob Schotz, watchmaker, and Cherna Tischa Abramovitch, in Arensburg (now Kuressaare, Estonia), then part of the Russian Empire, on 28 August 1891. He was educated at the Boys Grammar School of Pärnu, Estonia, before attending the Grossherzogliche Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1912, Schotz immigrated to Glasgow to join his brother Jeannot, where he gained an engineering diploma from the Royal Technical College (now University of Strathclyde) in 1914. From 1914 to 1923 he worked in the drawing office of John Brown and Company, Clydebank shipbuilders, while attending evening classes in sculpture at Glasgow School of Art. Initially using the name ‘Shotts’ rather than the German-sounding ‘Schotz’, his first work was exhibited in 1917. Three years later he was elected a member of the Glasgow Art Club. In 1923 he became a full-time sculptor and began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy. He presented a group of sculptures at Reid's Gallery, Glasgow in 1926, of which the Jewish Chronicle observed '[...] particularly in A Ghetto Jew, Job and The Exile, he has portrayed with a sincere simplicity yet rugged tenderness the soul of the Jewish people' (Jewish Chronicle, 26 March 1926, p. 32). He also joined the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in that year. Schotz exhibited frequently, and had a long association with Ben Uri, showing in its first open show at Woburn House in 1934, and at subsequent opening exhibitions for its Portman Street (1944) and Berners Street premises (1961).
In 1937 Schotz became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. The status of Academician indicated recognition of his talent, yet Schotz initially had difficulties finding work as a professional sculptor. As a protegé of architect John Keppie he received several commissions, but well into the 1930s he had to rely on the dressmaking business of his wife Milly for a steady income. By 1938, however, Schotz had received his first commission from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, probably through a referral from friend and architect Jack Coia. Later the same year he was appointed Head of Sculpture and Ceramics at Glasgow School of Art, a post he held until his retirement in 1960, and where his pupils included local Jewish artist Hannah Frank (Ben Uri Collection) and émigrée, Inge King (née Neufeld). His Glasgow homes at West Campbell Street and, later, Kirklee Road, became well-known hubs where artists, writers, actors, and politicians gathered. Following his retirement the Arts Council in London presented the retrospective exhibition, Sculpture and Drawings by Benno Schotz (1961).
Schotz’s vast body of work encompasses figurative and semi-abstract compositions, sculptures in churches, and modelled portraits (several Israeli prime ministers sat to him, reflecting Schotz's long-held Zionist convictions), while many works adorn public locations in Glasgow and the surrounding area. It has been argued that Schotz was inspired initially by Rodin and later by Jacob Epstein, with whom Schotz considered he shared a common cultural inheritance. Ben Braber writes that Schotz 'never lost his sense of a separate Jewish identity’ ('Open Windows', 2012, p. 176), which was reflected in his work. In 1942, he organised the 'Jewish Art Exhibition' at the Glasgow Jewish Institute and he was chairman of the committee for the Festival of Jewish Arts held in Glasgow in 1951. Schotz’s style arguably evolved after the arrival in Glasgow of fellow Jewish émigré artists Jankel Adler and Josef Herman, whom he assisted in achieving commissions and sales. Unto the Hills (1943), a work carved in response to news of the Holocaust, marked Schotz’s decision to abandon Classicism and express himself in a more direct manner, a decision that would influence future generations of Scottish artists through his teaching at Glasgow School of Art. In 1963 he became Her Majesty’s Sculptor in Ordinary for Scotland and in 1971 a major retrospective of his work was held at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. The following year he completed The Psalmist, in the T. J. Honeyman Memorial Garden at Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow. In 1981 Schotz published his autobiography, Bronze in My Blood, the year in which he was honoured with the freedom of the city of Glasgow. He was Life-President of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts as well as an Honorary Member of both the Royal Society of British Sculptors (RBS) and the Royal Institute of Architects in Scotland. His last sculpture was executed less than six weeks before his death.
Benno Schotz died on 11 October 1984 in Glasgow, Scotland, aged 93 and was buried in Jerusalem, Israel. His work is represented in numerous UK public collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, Ben Uri Collection, Glasgow School of Art, Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Royal Institute of British Architects, Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
Benno Schotz in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Benno Schotz]
Publications related to [Benno Schotz] in the Ben Uri Library