Bertha Tarnay was born into a Jewish-Protestant family in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria) on 23 July 1891. She studied art history in Vienna and lived in several European cities before immigrating to London in 1929. She is best known for lithographs and charcoal drawings which provide social critique in an expressionist style, illustrating the class divide and London's busy street life, often focussing on marginalised members of society.
Artist Bertha Tarnay was born into a Jewish-Protestant family in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria) on 23 July 1891. From 1909 to 1911, she studied art history at the University of Vienna, followed by two years of art studies in Florence from 1911 to 1913. In 1913, the year of her graduation, Tarnay made the decision to leave the Mosaic Religious Community (also known as the People of the Law of Moses). This community emerged from Judaizing religious groups from Novgorod in the 15th century, blending late medieval Kabbalism and early Neoplatonic Humanism. The following year, she married Dr. Richard Strauss, a physician. However, her life took a dramatic turn in 1915 when Strauss shot Philip Weiss, who was Tarnay’s lover. Soon after the tragic event, Tarnay gave birth to her daughter, Franziska, fathered by Weiss, and separated from him. Tarnay’s political beliefs began to take shape in 1918 when she joined the Communist Party of Austria. In 1920, she entered into a second marriage with writer Franz Hollering. The couple moved to Brno in Czechoslovakia in 1921, where Tarnay worked as a set designer. Her journey continued with a move to Teplice in 1923. In 1926, following her divorce, Tarnay relocated to Berlin, where she immersed herself in a vibrant artistic community in Weimar Germany, maintaining an active exchange with notable artists, Käthe Kollwitz and Heinrich Zille. This period was crucial for her development as an artist.
In 1927, Tarnay moved to Paris, and two years later, in 1929, she settled in London and soon acquired British citizenship. This move marked the beginning of her most productive artistic period. She created numerous charcoal drawings and lithographs depicting scenes of stark social divide, the lives of working-class women, and the hustle and bustle of London’s street life, akin to the social critique found in the works of Kollwitz and the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement. Her work draws on the visual language of Expressionism, evident in exaggerated, emotive forms and stark contrasts, while her figures often appear weary and downtrodden, embodying the struggles of the working class and the marginalised. Some works portray a bustling street scene in which the lives of the wealthy and the impoverished are powerfully juxtaposed, reminiscent of the urban critiques by artists such as George Grosz. Darker tavern scenes, brooding tones, a sense of despair and entrapment, aging, poverty, harsh realities and downtrodden figures feature regularly in her work.
From 1930 to 1938, Tarnay was actively involved in exhibitions in London and Vienna. In 1934, she married Ernest Burgess in London. Her political commitment deepened in 1936 when she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain. Her communist activities as a courier were documented in now declassified FBI documents. In 1965, Tarnay moved to the USA to join her family who had moved there earlier. Bertha Tarnay died in New York, USA in 1973. Posthumously, her works were included in at least two exhibitions in Vienna. Bertha Tarnay: A Viennese Woman in London was held in 2016 at the Galerie bei der Oper. She subsequently featured in the group show, Die bessere Hälfte - Jüdische Künstlerinnen bis 1938 [The Better Half - Jewish Women Artists Before 1938], presented at the Jewish Museum in Vienna in 2017. Her work is not part of any public collections in the UK.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Bertha Tarnay]
Publications related to [Bertha Tarnay] in the Ben Uri Library