Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Else Meidner artist

Painter Else Meidner (née Meyer) was born in 1901 into a wealthy Berlin Jewish family and encouraged in her artistic ambitions from an early age by artists including Käthe Kollwitz and Max Slevogt. She studied at the Art Academy in Berlin and attended drawing classes taught by her future husband, Ludwig Meidner, whom she married in 1927. The Meidners fled to England in 1939; Else worked as a domestic while Ludwig was interned, and stayed on in England when he later returned to Germany post-war.

Born: 1901 Berlin, Germany

Died: 1987 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Else Meyer


Biography

Painter Else Meidner (née Meyer) was born into a wealthy Jewish family on 2 September 1901 in Berlin, Germany, the daughter of the physician, Dr Heinrich Meyer and his wife, Margarete. She was encouraged in her artistic ambitions from a young age by artists including Max Slevogt and Käthe Kollwitz and studied between 1918 and 1925 in the studios of Adolf Meyer and sculptor, Arthur Lewin-Funke, as well at Berlin's Kunstgerwerbeschule and Art Academy. She also attended drawing classes at the Studienatelier für Malerei und Plastiks, taught by Ludwig Meidner (1884–1966), a leading expressionist painter and orthodox Jew, whom she would marry in 1927. Else's etched portrait of Alfred Doeblin (1927, who lectured at Ben Uri in 1935 on the tragedy of German Jews) was awarded a prize in a graphics competition organised by the magazine Die Schaffenden in 1928. Her first solo show at Berlin's Juryfreie in 1932, was critically received. From 1933, following anti-Semitic legislation, Else could only exhibit her works to a Jewish audience – for example, at the Jewish Cultural Association.

Mounting antisemitism forced the Meidners to move to Cologne (where Ludwig taught at a Jewish school), prior to emigrating to England in 1939 with their son, David (born in 1929). They initially settled in Camden Town, north-west London, with Else working as a domestic. Following mass internment in 1940, Ludwig was incarcerated on the mainland and then on the Isle of Man. In 1944 Else showed with the Women's International Art Club. Post-internment, in 1947 the couple moved to a tiny flat at 677 Finchley Road, where they lived in cramped conditions, surrounded by thousands of Ludwig's drawings, enduring great poverty, and struggling to achieve critical recognition within the British art establishment. Although Else was a talented and prodigious draughtswoman, her joint exhibition with Ludwig at Ben Uri Gallery in autumn 1949 passed largely unnoticed by the wider public. Photographs from the opening show Else as a melancholic figure beside her husband, who – in contrast – smiles impishly. In early summer 1953, the Meidners met Czechoslovak émigré, Professor J. P. Hodin (1905–1995), art historian, critic and pioneer of the so-called 'Continental British School of Painters' who became an important patron, developing a case study of Else as an artist over more than 30 years. Hodin understood the complex dynamic between the couple. ‘[...] jealousy and competing ambition played an important part in their lives’ he observed. ‘Nevertheless a deep and mutual affection bound them together.’ (J. P. Hodin, Else Meidner in England, undated TSS, Tate Archive). Despite Hodin’s support, Else could not overcome the disappointment and bitterness of losing her homeland and later recalled: 'Here in London I walk about as in a dream and am surprised I’m here. Some plants thrive wherever you transplant them, but I could never put down new roots. My roots are in Berlin'. (translated from German, J. P. Hodin, 1979). She and Ludwig became increasingly estranged, and when he returned to Darmstadt to critical acclaim in 1953, Else remained in London (apart from a year's visit during 1963–64 when Ludwig was unwell). She adopted British citizenship in 1953.

During the 1950s–1960s, Else exhibited mainly in London galleries with émigré links, showing charcoal figures and heads at the Matthiesen Gallery (1956), and at the Beaux-Arts Gallery in 1959. Ben Uri held two retrospectives: in 1964 Hodin opened the show, with catalogue text by Darmstadt journalist, Margarete Dierks; and in 1972 (Else's 70th birthday exhibition, delayed through her poor health), Hodin provided catalogue text and opening speech. Much of this activity was reviewed in AJR Information, which followed Else's career in exile across four decades.

Else's drawings of nudes, portraits and mother-and-child groups suggest the influence of Rembrandt, both in the expression of the inner feelings of her sitters and in her subtle and dramatic chiaroscuro. Her later, more colourful expressionist painting was equally imbued with deep emotion. Else produced her last works in the mid-1960s, not only due to poor health but probably also through disillusionment. Elsa Meidner died in London on 7 May 1987, having previously bequeathed her entire oeuvre to Hodin, who persuaded Tate to accept her disturbing, charcoal self-portrait Death and the Maiden in 1983, 'as a token of the artist's gratitude for having spent the years of emigration in England' (Hodin, Tate Archive). In 1989, Hodin donated Portrait of a Bearded Man to Ben Uri. A joint retrospective of the Meidners work was held at Ben Uri in 2002 in conjunction with the Jewish Museum, Frankfurt. Else's work is represented in public collections in the UK, including Ben Uri Gallery; British Museum and Tate Gallery.

Related books

  • Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
  • Finchleystraße: German artists in exile in Great Britain and beyond 1933–45' (London: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in association with the German Embassy London, 2018)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933–45 (London: Ben Uri Galley, 2009)
  • Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006)
  • Georg Heuberger, ed., Ludwig und Else Meidner, exhib. cat. (Frankfurt: Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt, and London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2002)
  • Angela Levine, 'Berlin's Other Face', Jerusalem Post, 22 May 1992, p. 20
  • Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–1945 (Berlin: Frölich & Kaufmann, 1986)
  • Aus den Erinnerungen von Else Meidner e. Würdigung ihres Werkes (Darmstadt: Justus-von-Liebig-Verlag, 1979)
  • Else Meidner, exhib. cat. (London: Ben Uri Art Gallery, 1972)
  • Else Meidner, exhib. cat. (London: Ben Uri Art Gallery, 1964)
  • Josef Paul Hodin, 'The Art of Else Meidner', The Studio, 1960
  • J. P. Hodin, uncatalogued archive, Tate Archive, London (TGA20062)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Women's International Art Club (exhibitor)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Gloucester Museum (2019–2020)
  • Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933–45, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in association with the German Embassy, London (2018)
  • Künstlerinnen im Dialog [Women Artists in Dialogue], Verborgene Museum, Berlin (2017)
  • Ben Uri: 100 for 100, Christie's South Kensington (2016)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery (2009–10)
  • Else Meidner, 1901–1987, Jüdische Gemeinde Darmstadt (1998)
  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Permanent Collection and Recent Acquisitions, Ben Uri Gallery (1989)
  • Kunst im Exil in Großbritanien 1933–1945 [Art in Exile in Great Britain 1933–1945], Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin (1986)
  • Selected Works from the Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Gallery (1980)
  • Else Meidner, Ben Uri Gallery (1972)
  • Leicester Galleries, London (1966)
  • Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Else Meidner, Ben Uri Gallery (1964)
  • Summer Exhibition, Beaux-Arts Gallery, London (1959)
  • Matthiesen Gallery, London (1956)
  • Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Frankfurt (1955)
  • Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artist, Ben Uri Gallery, London (1951)
  • Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Jewish Painters and Sculptors, Ben Uri Gallery (1950)
  • Drawings of Ludwig Meidner, Paintings and Drawings of Else Meidner, Ben Uri Gallery (1949)
  • Summer Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1944)
  • Women's International Art Club, London (1944)
  Else Meidner
   
Ben Uri collection

Else Meidner in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Else Meidner]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Else Meidner] in the Ben Uri Library