Edward Toledano was born to a Jewish family in the USA in 1910. Following education and early careers in the USA as an actor and in business, by 1968 he was living in London. As an artist Toledano concentrated mainly on figures but also produced landscapes, and used pastels and crayon, also experimenting with bronze and wood sculpture. During his lifetime his work was described as 'surrealist' and ‘symbolist’ in nature.
Artist Edward Toledano was born to a Jewish family in New York, USA on 11 March 1910. After an early art education at Yale University school of fine arts, during the 1930s he was a stage and screen actor who went by the name Edward Trevor and later worked as a businessman. He married a Moroccan-French woman and together they moved to London sometime before 1968, where Toledano became a full-time painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. In London Toledano returned to his art education, attending Sir John Cass School of Art (1979–82), and St Martin’s School of Art in 1983, although his first London exhibition of drawings is recorded in 1972 at Basil Jacobs Fine Art in Bruton Street.
Toledano concentrated mainly on figures but also produced landscapes, and used pastels and black and white crayon. He also experimented with bronze and wood sculpture. In 1975 he became the first American-born artist to present a solo exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, where he exhibited 40 of his oils, lithographs and etchings. He also held several solo exhibitions at Ben Uri during the 1970s and 1980s, including a retrospective in 1981. The Jewish Chronicle art critic Peter Stone, reviewing Toledano’s 1977 Ben Uri exhibition, noted that ‘His black - and - whites, his strongest medium, are particularly powerful. A man and a colt become as one, another idea flows from a woman's breasts, through trees, to grave stones. These works, among others, talk to you’ (Stone 1977, p. 14). In 1979 Toledano had a volume of lithographs published by the Curwen Studios, one of which was bought by the Tate. In the same year, he held a show at the Ben Uri Gallery which demonstrated ‘that he is a good draughtsman with strength of line and rhythm, and his individual vision is expressed within the confines of good design’ (Stone 1979, p. 15). According to the Jewish Chronicle art critic Barry Fealdman (who was also Ben Uri's secretary), Toledano’s 1986 Ben Uri exhibition was informed by ‘refined lyricism and craftsmanship’. He also praised the artist’s lively colours which ‘create a feeling of harmony springing from a sensitive aesthetic discernment. He well conveys the delight he feels in the presence of nature’ (Fealdman 1986, p. 14).
Toledano held a position on Ben Uri's Council in 1990–92. In 1992 he and 19 other descendants of the Toledano family (Sephardi Jews of Spanish origin) received the keys to the city of Toledo, along with ceremonial letters of forgiveness for the events leading to the expulsion of the Jewish population from Spain five hundred years before. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency recorded the 20 participants, describing Toledano as a ‘British sculptor’. Toledano's final months were photographed by his son, Phillip Toledano, in a project he later titled Days with my Father. Phillip’s photographs and his corresponding blog entries comprise most of the surviving information about Edward, such as his acting career and his move to London. Days with my Father turned into an exhibit at Gallery 339 in Philadelphia, with Phillip’s photographs displayed alongside his father’s drawings.
Edward Toledano died on 19 March 2009 in New York City, USA. His work is held in a number of UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Southampton City Art Gallery and Tate. Many of his painted wood sculptures have been purchased by private collectors. In 2015 his work was included posthumously in the drawing exhibition No Set Rules, held at Ben Uri in collaboration with the Schlee Collection at Southampton City Art Gallery.
Edward Toledano in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Edward Toledano]
Publications related to [Edward Toledano] in the Ben Uri Library