Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1920 Kraków, Poland

Died: 1997 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1958

Biography

Ceramist and painter Dante Elsner was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Kraków, Poland in 1920. Following the German and Russian invasions , he was forced to interrupt his studies in biology and to flee east, joining his parents on the Russian side of divided Poland. They lived together until 1942, when Elsner lost his entire family: his mother was murdered at Belzec extermination camp, his father and brother in Treblinka. Elsner only managed to survive by hiding in the forest, eating snails, roots and wild berries. After the end of the Second World War, he returned to Krakow, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts.

In order to escape the oppressive atmosphere of postwar Communist Poland, in 1948 he moved to Paris, where he immediately applied for refugee status. He remained in France for ten years, during which time he focused on his art whilst carrying out odd jobs, including drawing frames for animated films, in order to make ends meet. He lived in reduced circumstances in a little studio in the Boulevard St Michel, spending any income on painting materials. When he had no money to buy canvas, he used his shirts and vests. In Paris Elsner was influenced by the teachings of Russian mystic philosopher George Gurdjieff – known to their adherents as ‘the Work’ – and discovered ‘a spiritual path for the exploration of human existence and for the interior evolution of man to deeper states of attention, alertness and vision’ (Jas Elsner, p. 6).

In 1958 Elsner relocated to London with his wife, fellow Polish Holocaust survivor Renée Wistreich. In order to support his family, Elsner reluctantly worked as a commercial artist and designer. In 1961 the couple’s first daughter Anne, who was three years-old, died suddenly in her sleep. This tragic loss, on top of the loss of his entire family during the war, contributed to a significant transformation in Elsner’s work, leading to what can be considered his mature period as an artist from the 1960s onwards. During this time, Elsner and his wife began receiving a pension from the German Government as reparations for their personal suffering during the war. In addition, Renée was awarded substantial compensation from the German Federal Republic for the loss of her family's timber business. Thanks to this improved financial situation, Elsner was able to give up commercial work and devote himself solely to his art. He abandoned oils and turned to watercolours and ink; unlike oils which could be reworked, brushstrokes in these media did not ‘lie’, but immediately revealed the maker’s state of mind. He regularly visited the 'Prints and Drawings' room at the British Museum to closely examine the works of the masters. In particular, he appreciated Rembrandt, as well as the portrait drawings by Holbein in the Royal Collection. Elsner’s own works were characterised by few strokes, reflecting the conception (found in Gurdjieff but also in traditional Chinese and Japanese thought), that painting expressed the world of man, whose ultimate aim was to unite heaven and earth – represented by the space above and below. He produced still lives, landscapes, portraits, as well as paintings influenced by spiritual teachings from Gurdjieff and others. He also produced a series of paintings inspired by Shakespeare's plays. Elsner enjoyed sketching people in the streets of north west London, including around Queen’s Park and Hampstead Heath. He was also involved, with his family, in craft activities at the Work’s large former chicken farm at Bray, outside London. Here he first experimented with pottery from the early 1960s, learning skills from fine craftsman potter, Peter O’Malley. Initially Elsner worked in stoneware and porcelain, turning to raku in the 1970s. Elsner remained artistically independent throughout his career, pursuing his artistic ideals without compromise. He did not like art dealers and exhibited rarely, although his work featured in two group shows: Paintings & Sculpture by Dante Elsner, Shelley Fausset and Jeff Hoare (South London Gallery, 1974) and Ceramics from Traditional Form to Sculpture: Outstanding Work from the British Isles (The Scottish Gallery, 1982). Elsner, nevertheless, enjoyed designing exhibition spaces himself, making scale models, producing all the furniture and framing his pictures. In the 1980s and 1990s Elsner’s ceramics were briefly taken up by art dealer Henry Rothschild, founder of the Primavera Gallery, London, who organised group exhibitions of English studio pottery abroad, but his work has largely remained hidden from public view. Towards the end of his life, weakened by heart disease, Elsner was largely unable to work. Dante Elsner died in London, England in 1997. His work is represented in UK public collections in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The book In the Spirit of Pilgrimage based on conversations between Elsner and his son, art historian, Jas Elsner, was published in 2014, while his granddaughter, Maia, lectured on Elsner and his work during the 'Insiders/Outsiders' cultural festival in 2021, which focussed on the contribution made to British culture by the so-called Hitler émigrés. As of autumn 2021, Dante Elsner's ceramics are shown commercially by the Alice Black Gallery, London.

Related books

Jas Elsner, In the Spirit of Pilgrimage (Canada: Traditional Studies Press, 2014)
Ceramics from Traditional Form to Sculpture: Outstanding Work from the British Isles, exhib. cat. (The Scottish Gallery, 1982)
Paintings & Sculpture by Dante Elsner, Shelley Fausset and Jeff Hoare, exhib. cat. (London: South London Gallery, 1974)

Public collections

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Selected exhibitions

Hawks in her Hair, Alice Black Gallery, London (2021)
Future Fossils, group exhibition, Alice Black Gallery, London (2021)
Fire and Frost, Alice Black Gallery, London (2021)
In the Manner of Smoke, Alice Black Gallery, London (2018)
Becoming and Dissolving, Alice Black Gallery, London (2017)
Ceramics from Traditional Form to Sculpture: Outstanding Work from the British Isles, The Scottish Gallery (1982)
Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture: Dante Elsner, Jeff Hoare, Shelley Fausset, South London Gallery (1974)
Madeleine Pearson, Drawings. Dante Elsner, Recent Paintings, Upper Street Gallery (1970)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Dante Elsner]

Ben Uri Research Unit

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

Dante Elsner ceramicist