Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1875 Iași, Romania

Died: 1944 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1936

Biography

Painter, art teacher and art therapy pioneer, Arthur Segal was born into a Jewish family in Iași, Romania on 23 July 1875. He studied painting in Berlin, Munich, Paris and Italy, settling in Berlin in 1904, becoming a leading artist in the progressive New Secession. His first woodcuts were published in 1911 in Herwarth Walden’s Der Sturm (The Storm), a German art and literary magazine, followed by an exhibition at Walden’s gallery in 1912. Segal sought refuge in Ascona, Switzerland during the First World War, where he befriended Leonhard Frank and Ludwig Rubiner; he also exhibited with the Dada group at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. During this period he began to make optical experiments in his painting, developing a type of prismatic Cubism, in which he divided the canvas into eight carefully constructed and balanced schematic fields. From 1923–33 he taught in Berlin, rejecting an offer to teach at the New Bauhaus in Dessau in 1925, and was an active member of the progressive Novembergruppe (November Group); among his circle were Kurt Schwitters, Richard Ziegler and George Grosz.

Following Hitler's accession to the German Chancellorship in 1933, Segal moved to Mallorca, Spain, where his son Walter was working as an architect; a year later, three of Segal's oils were included in the Exhibition of German-Jewish Artists' Work: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture organised at the Parsons Gallery, London by German-Jewish dealer, Carl Braunschweig (later Charles Brunswick), displaying artworks by artists suffering persecution under the Nazi regime.

In 1936 Segal moved to London and his work became more naturalistic; a self-portrait (1939, Dundee Art Museum), is darker and more realistic in style than his earlier Cubist works. Segal’s pre-war woodcuts, depicting the beauty of sun, wind and sea, demonstrated his technical mastery. As a review in the Jewish Chronicle noted, Segal ‘succeeds in giving depth by a few black-white touches. He draws you into his sea landscapes of water, pier, harbour and distant coast line and gives you happiness. In his simple medium he makes a nightly street scene shine with light’ (A.R. 1962, p. 8). In 1940, as a so-called 'enemy alien', Segal was briefly interned on the Isle of Man. Previously, he had established his own studio and painting school in Hampstead in 1937, run with his wife Ernestine and daughter Marianne until his death, after which they continued his work for more than 30 years. Interested in painting as therapy for mental illness, Segal corresponded with psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, including Sigmund Freud, who had also found refuge in London. Segal worked directly with doctors and psychologists who sent patients to his school and he also organised art therapy courses for professionals working in the medical and mental health fields. In an interview with the Jewish Chroniclefor the first exhibition of paintings by his students, Segal explained that ‘I believe that the mental difficulties and complexities that so many of us suffer from can be relieved and eventually dispersed by the ability to create. Every small child creates […] but with adolescence come inhibitions […] self-consciousness and introspection, which prohibit natural self-expression. […] I attempt to recreate the freedom of the child so that in expressing ourselves naturally we can once more attain an inner peace and harmony’ (H.K. 1938, p. 40).

Arthur Segal died in London, England on 23 June 1944. In August his work was included in the Summer Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Artists at Ben Uri and has subsequently been shown under its auspices on numerous occasions. In 1945 a memorial exhibition was organised at the R.B.A. galleries, with another show held in 1961. In a review of the latter, the AJR Information described Segal as: 'a seeker. He refused to be ossified and to stop growing in knowledge and insight. His pictures are his biography. They show that he was a master of his craft, that he had a truly painterly approach, that his composition and his use of colour deserve our admiration.’ (AJR Information 1961). In 1973 an exhibition of Segal's woodcuts, arranged by Richard Nathanson, was held at the Ben Uri Gallery. A major retrospective exhibition of his work of was held in Cologne in 1987 which then travelled to Berlin, Regensburg, Ascona and Tel Aviv. A catalogue was produced by Argon Verlag, Berlin in conjunction with the exhibition, containing numerous illustrations of Segal's works and essays about his life and influence. Segal’s work is held in UK public collections including the Arts Council Collection, Ben Uri Collection, Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection and the Guildhall Art Gallery, London. A renewed interest in the history of art therapy has resulted in several recent academic papers, including ‘A Refuge for the Mind': Arthur Segal, Painting and Therapeutic Care for Children, to be published in 2023, by Dr Imogen Wiltshire, building on her earlier MPhil thesis on Segal.

Related books

Dr Imogen Wiltshire, ‘A Refuge for the Mind': Arthur Segal, Painting and Therapeutic Care for Children (European Judaism, special issue, 2023)
Imogen Wiltshire., 'Therapeutic Art Concepts and Practices in Britain and the United States (1937–1946)', (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2017)
Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Out of Chaos: Ben Uri: 100 Years in London (London: Ben Uri, 2015), p. 70-71
Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall eds., Ben Uri: 100 Years in London - Art, Identity, Migration (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015), p. 150-151
Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Camden (London: The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2013), p. 32
Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933-1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006)
Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner eds., Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection (London: Ben Uri Art Society, 1994), p. 145
Arthur Segal, Arthur Segal 1875-1944 (London: Fischer Fine Art, 1978)
F.G. Stone, 'Art Notes', Jewish Chronicle, 14 April 1961, p. 31
'Arthur Segal', Jewish Chronicle, 4 March 1955, p. 9
E.N., Paintings By Arthur Segal, The Manchester Guardian, 24 September 1945, p. 3
'Segal Rediscovered', Country Life, Vol. 153, 5 April 1973, p. 907
H.K., 'Arthur Segal's Painting School', Jewish Chronicle, 30 December 1938, p. 40

Public collections

Related organisations

Berlin Academy (student)
Neue Sezession (co-founder)
Novembergruppe Art School (founder)
Novembergruppe (member)

Selected exhibitions

Art-exit: 1939 - A Very Different Europe, 12 Star Gallery, London (2019)
Exodus: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Bushey Museum (2018)
Out of Chaos - Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, Somerset House, London (2015)
Forced Journeys Tour: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45, Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead (2010)
Homeless and Hidden 1, Ben Uri Gallery (2008)
Director's Choice: Highlights from the Ben Uri Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Gallery - The London Jewish Museum of Art (2003)
Arthur Segal Retrospective, Ben Uri Art Society (1986)
Exhibition of Selected Works from the Permanent Collection: Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture, Ben Uri Gallery (1979)
Group exhibition, Gallery 35 (1979)
Exhibition of Woodcuts by Arthur Segal, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1973)
Paintings from the Ben Uri Art Gallery, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum (1970)
Group show, Artists' Own Gallery, Kingly Street (1964)
Arthur Segal, Woodcats 1910-1917, England Lane (1962)
Arthur Segal, Woodcats 1910-1917, England Lane (1962)
Arthur Segal, R.B.A. Galleries (1961)
Arthur Segal, R.B.A Galleries (1955)
Exhibition of Jewish Art, Hove Museum of Art (1950)
Landscapes by Arthur Segal, Marianne Segal, The Cooling Galleries (1950)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Arthur Segal]