Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Alicia Melamed-Adams artist

Alicia Melamed Adams was born into a Jewish family in Boryslav, eastern Poland (now Ukraine) in 1927 and was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. In 1950 she moved with her husband, Adam Melamed to Britain, where she trained at St Martin’s School of Art and Sir John Cass School of Art, and began to exhibit her paintings. In 1965 Melamed Adams became a member of the United Society of Artists with whom she regularly exhibited.

Born: 1927 Boryslav, Poland (now Ukraine)

Year of Migration to the UK: 1950

Other name/s: Alicia Melamed


Biography

Painter Alicia Melamed Adams (née Goldschlag) was born into a Jewish family in Boryslav, in eastern Poland (now Ukraine) in 1927. She had a happy childhood with her oil-mining engineer father, designer mother, and older brother Josef, who enjoyed writing poetry and dreamt of becoming an architect. Following the Wall Street Crash, the family moved to Drohobycz and then a year later to Gdynia. Returning to Drohobycz, Melamed Adams, naturally talented in art at school, studied drawing with renowned Polish-Jewish writer, artist and art teacher Bruno Schulz (who was notoriously shot by a Gestapo officer in 1942). She was 13 when the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939. In Drohobycz she laboured for the Gestapo on a building site, under constant threat of beatings and death. In 1942 her brother disappeared, aged 18, from the Janowska concentration camp in Lviv. She was deeply connected to Josef and never overcame this loss. Her family was forced into the Drohobycz ghetto, living in one room. Subsequently, they were sent to work in nearby Beskiden concentration camp, where she witnessed the killing of many childhood friends; they were then relocated to a local prison, from where she managed to escape, thanks to her friend, Poldek Weiss, whose father was a tailor for the Gestapo. The following day, her entire family were shot.

In 1946 she met and married fellow survivor, Adam Melamed, in Warsaw. Not wanting to remain in Communist Poland, in 1950 they moved to Paris, intending to reach Israel. However, she became seriously ill and was sent instead by her aunt to London for medical treatment. Her husband became manager of an East End factory and she initially wanted to study French and to teach. However, one of her teachers suggested she should study painting; given her traumatic past, he thought it would be easier to express her feelings on canvas. Melamed Adams thus enrolled at St Martin’s School of Art (1960–63), where she found it difficult to connect with other students. She felt that, unlike her peers, she had no experiences of a normal life, and remained haunted by her tragic past. She later recalled how, during life classes, she could not bear her teachers to look at her drawings from behind her, as this reminded her constantly looking over her shoulder for the Gestapo. At St Martin’s, her only friends were an older titled woman, Lady Rachel Clay, in her seventies, and the Bolivian artist, Fernando Montes. Lady Clay became very important to Melamed, introducing her to a wide social circle, broadening her horizons and, as she was part of the art establishment, inviting her to exhibitions. However, Montes was the one to whom she revealed her past. The sense of guilt she felt as a survivor led to a deep depression, and he suggested she write a diary as therapy. At St Martin's in 1963, she painted a series of works recalling her earlier life and the loss of family and childhood friends. These remained hidden in her studio for 20 years before she felt able to exhibit them. Two of these paintings, Two Frightened Children, inspired by memories of Josef, and The Parting, representing a family embracing as they face certain death, were later purchased for the Imperial War Museum, London, and used as cover images for two volumes of essays on the aftermath of the Second World War, Landscapes After Battle, co-edited by the IWM's Suzanne Bardgett (2010). Melamed Adams also enjoyed painting flowers, which she saw as a metaphor for the beauty and brevity of life, and the inspiration for her brilliant palette: 'Flowers have to me a visual and imaginative beauty that is akin to the beauty of poetry. The colours I learned from painting flowers I use when I paint figures' (The Gallery in Cork Street, 2002). She also studied at Sir John Cass School of Art, London, and produced pottery and etchings. In 1965 Melamed Adams became a member of the United Society of Artists with whom she regularly exhibited. She showed in group exhibitions in London, including at Foyles Art Gallery (1984), also across the UK, and twice in Paris, continuing to paint until her eyesight failed. In 1998 Ark-t Centre, Oxford presented: Alicia Melamed Adams: Soul Survivor, the Art of a Holocaust Survivor. Her work featured in Ben Uri's exhibition Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain (2017) and in Outlook: No Return. Polish Artists who fled Nazi-dominated Europe to British Culture, at POSK Gallery, London (2019), where she was interviewed by Simon Glass for a BBC London film marking Holocaust Memorial Day. Her work is represented in UK public collections including the Imperial War Museum and Ben Uri Gallery and Museum; both institutions hold her oral testimony.

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson ed., From Adler to Zulawski: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain (London: Ben Uri Research Unit, 2020)
  • Suzanne Bardgett, 'A Child Survives in Drohobycz: The Story Behind Alicia Melamed Adams’s Paintings' in Suzanne Bardgett et. al., Justice, Politics and Memory, Europe After the Second World War, Vol. 2 (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011)
  • 'Poignant Holocaust Survivor art Gets wider Audience', Jewish Chronicle, 27 January 2011
  • Alicia Melamed Adams exhib. cat. (London: The Gallery in Cork Street, 2002)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams: Romantic Paintings (London: Mermaid Theatre, 1991)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • St Martin's School of Art (student)
  • Sir John Cass Art School (student)
  • United Society of Artists (member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Outlook: No Return. Polish Artists who Fled Nazi-dominated Europe to British Culture, POSK Gallery, Polish Social and Cultural Association, London (2019)
  • Liberators: Extraordinary Women Artists from the Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Gallery, London (2018)
  • Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Painters in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery, London (2017)
  • St Luke’s Church, Holloway, London (2016)
  • Poppies (Women and War), Oxford University (2014)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams Exhibition marking Holocaust Memorial Day, London Jewish Cultural Centre (2011)
  • Unspeakable: The Artist As Witness To The Holocaust, Imperial War Museum, London (2008)
  • The Art of a Holocaust Survivor, Northwood (2005)
  • University of Sheffield Library (2003)
  • Hanover Gallery, Liverpool International (2002)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams, The Gallery in Cork Street, London (2002)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams: Soul Survivor, the Art of a Holocaust Survivor, Ark-t Centre, Oxford (1998)
  • Open Exhibition of Works by Contemporary Female Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1998)
  • Two Person Show, Sackville Gallery, London (1997)
  • 2 Artists Two Views, Gallery at Bird & David Ltd, London (1996)
  • Jewish Artists. The Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Gallery (1994)
  • Crocodile Gallery, London (1993)
  • Intaglio Gallery, Manchester (1993)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams, Romantic Paintings, Leicester City Art Gallery (1993)
  • Alicia Melamed Adams: Romantic Paintings, Mermaid Theatre, London (1991)
  • The Crypt Gallery (1990)
  • Hunting Art Prizes, The Mall Gallery, London (1990)
  • Royal Academy, Summer Exhibition (1988)
  • Foyles Art Gallery, London (1984)
  • Art in Edinburgh, The Commonwealth Institute (1984)
  Alicia Melamed-Adams
   
Ben Uri collection

Alicia Melamed-Adams in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Alicia Melamed-Adams]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Alicia Melamed-Adams] in the Ben Uri Library