Arthur Galliner was born in 1878 in Zinten, East Prussia, Germany (now Kornevo, Russia) into a religious Jewish family. He studied art history and literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt and produced several art historical publications. Galliner fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and settled in England, where he had a successful career both as a teacher and a painter of landscapes and portraits of prominent Jewish personalities, which he exhibited on a regular basis.
Painter, educator and art historian Arthur Galliner was born in 1878 in Zinten, East Prussia, Germany (now Kornevo, Russia), into a religious Jewish family (his father was a cantor at the local synagogue). Having attended school in Zinten, Galliner then studied at the Präparand, a primary school teacher training college, and at a Jewish teacher training institute in Berlin. Galliner subsequently worked as an assistant teacher at schools in the Berlin Jewish community and, from 1900 onwards, at the Philanthropin, a well-known Jewish school in Frankfurt. In the following years, he also trained as a drawing teacher for higher educational establishments and teacher training colleges, including at the Königliche Kunstschule, Berlin, becoming a secondary school teacher in 1903.
In parallel to his teacher training, Galliner studied fine art, including at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and at painter Hermann Groeber's private school. In 1915 Galliner obtained his high school diploma at the Realgymnasium in Marburg, which allowed him to study art history, German literature and history at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt. He received his doctorate degree in 1918. In 1920 Galliner passed the examination for a university teaching post, after which he worked as a lecturer in art history at the Bund für Volksbildung (Federation for Popular Education) and at the Jüdisches Lehrhaus, a Jewish centre for adult education, both in Frankfurt. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Galliner produced several publications, including on Max Liebermann (1927) and Sigismund Stern (1930), as well as a study dedicated to medieval stained glass, Glasgemälde des Mittelalters aus Wimpfen (Medieval Stained Glass from Wimpfen, 1932).
Following Hitler's ascension to the chancellorship in Germany in 1933 and the anti-Jewish legislation subsequently introduced, Galliner was briefly arrested and released in November 1938 because of his role as president of the Frankfurt Lodge of B'nai B'rith, a Jewish community organisation. Fearing for their lives, Galliner and his wife immigrated to England in 1939, first settling in Ellesmere, Shropshire, where Galliner taught at Ellesmere College until 1946, and later moving to London. Galliner became a naturalised British subject in 1947. He taught at Hammersmith School of Art (1947–50) and Borough Polytechnic (until 1952), where David Bomberg was a fellow tutor. While in Britain, Galliner mainly painted watercolours landscapes, while also executing numerous portraits of prominent Jewish personalities, including Dr Mordechai Eliash, the first Israeli ambassador to Great Britain; Lily Montagu, Sir Francis Simon, Dr James Parkes, Albert Hyamson, Leo Baeck, Lazarus Goldschmidt and Martin Buber. Galliner exhibited his works regularly, including with the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI), of which he was a member. Galliner was also a member of the B'nai B'rith Leo Baeck Lodge in London, where he exhibited together with sculptor Leo Horovitz in 1948. He also exhibited with Ben Uri on a number of occasions throughout the 1940s–60s, including in the society's Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artists (1956) and was a member of the Hampstead Artists' Council. In 1959 Galliner was awarded honorary life membership of the National Society for Art Education. Galliner also served as president of the London-based Philantropin Association, which brought together over 75 of the famous school's alumni and former staff members.
At different periods of time Galliner was also a contributor to the publications of the Deutsche Verein für Kunstwissenschaft (The German Art History Association), and to the Encyclopaedia Judaica. An anonymous author of Galliner's obituary in AJR Information wrote that, despite being well integrated into British cultural life, '[...] Galliner was also well aware of the special problems foreign artists have to face: his assessment of their position is reflected in the article The Refugee Artist which he wrote for the AJR's booklet Britain's New Citizens (1951)' (January 1962, p. 9). Galliner died in Hampstead, London in 1961. A memorial exhibition of Arthur Galliner's work was held at the Artists' Own Gallery in Kingly Street in 1965.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Arthur Galliner]
Publications related to [Arthur Galliner] in the Ben Uri Library