Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Jacob Kramer artist

Jacob Kramer was born into a Jewish family in Klintsy, Russian Empire (now Klincy, Ukraine) in 1892, and immigrated with them to Leeds as a young boy. A precocious talent at the local art school, Kramer studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1913–14), associating with the group of young Anglo-Jewish modernists now known as the Whitechapel Boys, as well as Wyndham Lewis' Blast. He returned to Leeds for the last three decades of his career.

Born: 1892 Klintsy, Chernigov governorate, Russian Empire (now Klincy, Ukraine)

Died: 1962 Leeds, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1900


Biography

Painter Jacob Kramer was born into an observant Jewish family in Klinsty, then part of the Russian Empire (now Klincy, Ukraine), on 26 December 1892. He later moved with his father, an artist, and his mother, a noted singer, to St Petersburg, at a time of mounting economic deprivation, and religious persecution of Jews. The family immigrated to England, settling in Leeds in 1900, the Kramer family found themselves in impoverished circumstances, typical of many ostjuden migrants arriving in Britain (his father could only find work as a photographic retoucher). Showing an early aptitude for drawing, Kramer regularly sketched his sister, Sarah, often depicting her as a colourful, Augustus John-like gypsy (she subsequently married Kramer's artist peer, Slade School of Fine Art graduate, William Roberts (1895–1980), and moved to London). Kramer studied at Leeds School of Art from 1907, winning several scholarships, where his precocious talent was recognised by the Headmaster, and by Michael Sadler, Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University and noted collector of modern art, who became Kramer's most important patron, encouraging him to apply to the Slade in London. Furthermore, Sadler's collection in his Leeds home introduced Kramer to artworks by many important British and European moderns, including Gauguin, Kandinsky, and German expressionists, Marc and Pechstein. From 1912 Kramer exhibited in group shows in northern public galleries, including Bradford, Doncaster and Leeds.

Supported by the charitable organisation, the Jewish Education Aid Society, Kramer attended the Slade for one academic year (1913-14), bringing him into contact with the group of Anglo-Jewish modernists now known as the 'Whitechapel boys'. They included Mark Gertler and David Bomberg, with whom Kramer exhibited in the ‘Jewish Section’ of the groundbreaking exhibition: Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1914 (the section was selected by Bomberg and American-born sculptor, Jacob Epstein). Despite the outbreak of war, Kramer continued to show in progressive company: with the newly-founded London Group; the New English Art Club; the first Vorticist exhibition at the Dore Galleries (all 1915); the Friday Club at the Alpine Galleries (1916); and the Allied Artists Association (1917). In 1917 a reproduction of his painting The Jew caused controversy in the national press, over its extreme modernism. Kramer also contributed reproductions to new popular literary and art magazines, including Wyndham Lewis’s Blast (War Number, July 1915), Art & Letters, Colour and New Paths (all 1918). He also lectured on the visual arts, convinced of the connection between colour and music, and the importance of expression in an artwork.

Despite an imposing physical presence, Kramer was of a nervous disposition (Epstein described his anxious trembling as he sat to his portrait bust (1921, Tate, Leeds City Art Gallery and Ben Uri Collections)) and, as the First World War progressed, he neither joined the Jewish Battalion nor become an official war artist. Finally, as a Russian, so-called ‘friendly alien’, Kramer was conscripted in the last months of the conflict, as a regimental librarian, a post facilitated by writer and critic, Herbert Read (1893–1968), whom he knew from Leeds and the progressive Leeds Arts Club. Postwar, Kramer anticipated continued success in London – in early 1920 the Leeds Jewish community gifted his most notable modernist painting to date, The Day of Atonement (1919), which presented Jewish religious subjectmatter in a highly reductive modern style, to Leeds Art Gallery, to mark his impending departure for the capital. in 1919 Kramer held his first solo exhibition in London, at the Adelphi Galleries, organised by Frank Rutter, curator at Leeds Art Gallery, and lent works to the Glasgow Society of Artists and Sculptors exhibition, at the McLellan Galleries, Glasgow. A year later, he was included in an unrealised commission scheme, proposed by Sir William Rothenstein (1872–1945, Principal of the Royal College of Art, London), to decorate Leeds Town Hall (with the Nash brothers, Edward Wadsworth and Stanley Spencer, among other artists). There followed a crisis of confidence, and Kramer returned to Leeds, where he became known as a colourful, local character, establishing his own Yorkshire Luncheon Group, and for his distinctive pastel portraits of northern notables and visiting celebrities (including Mahatma Gandhi, National Portrait Gallery, London). He continued to lend work to London exhibitions and to provide images for magazines, such as The New Coterie (November 1925). In 1928 his painting Clay/The Anatomy Lesson, (1928, Leeds Art Gallery) was included in the first London Group retrospective. Kramer also exhibited regularly in Ben Uri's Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists from 1935–50. A major retrospective was held at Leeds Art Gallery in 1960. Jacob Kramer died in Leeds, England on 4 February 1962. Posthumously his work was supported by several commercial galleries in London, including Belgrave and Parkin, and he was included in survey exhibitions of 20th century Jewish artists, in the UK and USA. His works are in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, Leeds Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate, and the University of Leeds.

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson, 'From Atonement to Public Adornment: Jacob Kramer and William Rothenstein 1911-22', in S. MacDougall (ed.), William Rothenstein and His Circle (London: Ben Uri, 2016)
  • Hilary Diaper, ed., The Sadler Gift 1923 (Leeds: Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, 2012)
  • Rachel Dickson, unpublished paper, 'Michael Sadler and Jacob Kramer: A Decade of Art Patronage and the Leeds Jewish Community 1913-1923', Sir Michael Sadler Symposium, Leeds Art Gallery, 2012
  • Rachel Dickson & Sarah MacDougall, eds., Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg & His Circle (London: Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art, 2008)
  • David Manson, Jacob Kramer: Creativity and Loss (Bristol: Sansom & Company, 2006)
  • Rachel Dickson, ed., William Roberts and Jacob Kramer: The Tortoise and the Hare (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2003)
  • The Search for Identity: immigrant artists in early twentieth century British Art (Doncaster: Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery, 2003)
  • Ruth Artmonsky, Slade Alumni 1900-1914 (London: Artmonsky Arts, 2001)
  • Dennis Child, The Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888-1922 (Leeds: Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Ltd, 2001)
  • Denys Wilcox, The London Group 1913-1939 The Artists and their Works (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995)
  • Jacob Kramer 1892-1962 A Centenary Exhibition (Leeds: University Art Gallery, 1992)
  • Avram Kampf, ed., Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art (London: Lund Humphries in association with Barbican Art Gallery, 1990)
  • Jacob Kramer, Belgrave Gallery, 1990)
  • Tom Steele, Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club 1893-1923 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990)
  • Frances Spalding, Jacob Kramer Reassessed (London: Ben Uri Art Society, 1984)
  • John Roberts, ed., The Kramer Documents (Valencia: private publication, 1983)
  • Jewish Artists of Great Britain 1845-1945 (London: Belgrave Gallery, 1978)
  • Millie Kramer, ed., Jacob Kramer, A Memorial Volume (Leeds: Privately printed by E. J. Arnold, 1969).

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Leeds School of Art (student)
  • Slade School of Fine Art (student)
  • The London Group (member)
  • Yorkshire Union of Artists (member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Interstices: Discovering the Ben Uri Collection curated by Rene Gimpel (2020)
  • Crossing Borders, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (2018–19)
  • Ben Uri: 100 for 100, Christie's South Kensington (2016)
  • Out of Chaos: Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, Ben Uri at the Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London (2015)
  • Uproar: The First 50 Years of The London Group 1913-1963, Ben Uri Gallery (2013)
  • Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg & His Circle, Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art (2008)
  • William Roberts and Jacob Kramer: The Tortoise and the Hare, Ben Uri Gallery and Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds (2004)
  • Blasting the Future!: Vorticism in Britain 1910-1920, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2004)
  • The Search for Identity: immigrant artists in early twentieth century British Art, Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery (2003)
  • Slade Alumni 1900-1914, Artmonsky Arts, London (2001)
  • The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum: And the Influence of Anglo-Jewish Artists on the Modern British Movement, London: Ben Uri Art Gallery (2001)
  • Jacob Kramer 1892-1962: A Centenary Exhibition, University Art Gallery, Leeds (1992)
  • Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art, Barbican Art Gallery (1990)
  • Jacob Kramer Reassessed, London, Ben Uri Art Society (1984)
  • Jewish Artists of Great Britain 1845-1945, Belgrave Gallery, London (1978)
  • (1973)
  • Jubilee Exhibition 50 Years of British Art, Tate Gallery (1964)
  • Exhibition of the Work of Jacob Kramer, Leeds Art Gallery (1960)
  • The London Group Retrospective Exhibition 1914-1928, New Burlington Galleries, London (1928)
  • Glasgow Society of Artists and Sculptors, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow (1919)
  • Allied Artists Association (1917)
  • Jacob Kramer, Leeds School of Art (1916)
  • Jacob Kramer, New English Art Club (1915)
  • Jacob Kramer, Yorkshire Union of Artists (1915)
  • First Vorticist exhibition, Dore Galleries (1915)
  • Jewish Section, Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1914)
  Jacob Kramer
   
Ben Uri collection

Jacob Kramer in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Jacob Kramer]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Jacob Kramer] in the Ben Uri Library