Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1921 London, England

Died: 1993 London, England

Other name/s: Gisha Tuckman, Gisha Koenig

Biography

Sculptor, draughtswoman and Yiddish theatre actor Ghisha Koenig was born in Kensington, London on 8 December 1921, daughter of the Russian-born, Yiddish writer and art critic Leo Koenig (pseudonym of Arye-Leyb Yaffe, 1889–1970), who was closely associated with Ben Uri in its first decades. Growing up in an impoverished, yet stimulating and political milieu, she was at the centre of a circle of Jewish artists and writers, including the painters Josef Herman and David Bomberg, who became role models. In 1939 she won a scholarship to Hornsey School of Art, leaving in 1942 to begin war service with the ATC (Air Training Corps). Postwar, she studied under Henry Moore at Chelsea School of Art (1946–48) and then at the Slade School of Fine Art (1948–49) under sculptor, F. E . McWilliam. She later recalled that Moore: ‘made me furious because he said it was vulgar to like Rodin, and Rodin was my hero. Despite that, he was a marvellous teacher and gave us a sense of the tremendous seriousness of art, and the realization that there were no short cuts’ (Taylor 1984, p. 1).

Koenig mainly created small-scale realist bronzes and terracottas in high relief, staining the latter 'with dark ink prior to burnishing them to restore the clay’s richness' (David Buckman). Much of her oeuvre focused on factory workers, whom she observed for over 40 years. Koenig wanted to draw the human figure but could not afford professional models, and her concern with the human condition and a desire for anonymity prompted her to choose workers as her principle subject. She commented: ‘after Hitler, the dignity of man had to be re-established’ (Brett 1986, p. 4). Over the course of her career, she visited a total of six factories, including the industrial estate at St Mary's Cray in Kent (where Koenig's husband helped set up a group medical practice) and the Peek Freans biscuit factory in Bermondsey, south London. Although endowing them with individuality, she nonetheless maintained a personal detachment from her subjects. In the solitude of her studio, first in Kent and for the last nine years in Camden Town, north London (previously occupied briefly by Naum Gabo (Jewish Chronicle, 1994)), she worked in terracotta from sketches, often spending up to two years on one project. For her series The Tent Makers (1978–80, one example held at the Graves Gallery, Sheffield), depicting workers who produced tents for an Everest expedition, she produced five reliefs, the largest of them 1.5 metres wide, together with five figures in the round.

In the 1960s she participated in several group exhibitions at the Grosvenor Gallery in London, including Sculpture For The Home (1963). The Times noted that her ‘terra cotta bas-reliefs strike an attractive balance between subject (the Rag Trade) and formal qualities of design’ (The Times 1963, p. 14). In 1966 she had her first solo exhibition at the Grosvenor, displaying 25 sculptures. The show was well-received by the public, and several pieces were purchased by the Ministry of Works, Centre 42 (Arnold Wesker's trade union group), and Homerton College for teacher training at Cambridge. Koenig also participated in several survey exhibitions including Jewish Artists in England, at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956, the same year she began participating in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. She also exhibited with the left-leaning Artists’ International Association (AIA) and at the Sculptural Biennale, while her work also featured with Ben Uri, including in the opening exhibition at Berners Street in 1961 and Ben Uri 50 Fiftieth Anniversary Special Exhibition(1966). In 1986 she had a retrospective jointly at London's Serpentine Gallery and the Boundary Gallery, showing terracotta and bronzes of factory workers. The Tribune noted that these studies were 'a response to the rhythm and tension of work, rather than realistic models […] these are the works of an artist whose subject is literary 'the human clay', and whose approach combines social realism and humanism' (Cooper 1986, p. 9). Between 1985–86 Koenig worked on a commission for a school for the blind in Sevenoaks in Kent. She lived at the school for nearly three months and the three resulting reliefs were mounted so that the children could 'see' her work through touch. Despite her Jewish identity, Koenig's also worked on a church commission, her modern interpretation of the Crucifixion, with Roman centurions replaced by Nazi storm-troopers, hanging above the high altar of St John the Divine at Earlsfield in south west London.

Ghisha Koenig died at University College Hospital, Camden, London on 15 October 1993. A memorial show was held at the Boundary Gallery in 1994. Her work is held in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Tate, Graves Gallery, Sheffield, The Women's Art Collection, Murray Edwards College and the Henry Moore Institute (HMI), Leeds (the latter also holds her sketchbooks and press cuttings in the archives). In 2001 Ben Uri featured her work in The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum. In 2017, the HMI presented Ghisha Koenig: Machines Restrict their Movement, bringing together drawings and sculptures made between 1951 and 1985, exploring Koenig’s commitment to sculpting industrial labour.

Related books

Margaret Garlake, 'Koenig, Ghisha' in H C G Matthew, Brian Harrison and Lawrence Goldman eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
Tucker David, British Social Realism in the Arts since 1940 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
Frances Spalding, 'Review: Arts', The Guardian, 31 March 2012, p. 18
David Buckman, Artists in Britain since 1945 (Bristol : Art Dictionaries, 2006)
Dorcas Taylor, 'The Anatomy of the Factory: the Drawings of Gisha Koenig (1921–1993)', in Penelope Curtis and Fiona Russell eds., Work and the Image (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 1998), pp. 6-8
Julia Weiner, Jewish Chronicle, 1 January 1994, p. 28
David Cohen, Ghisha Koenig 1921–1993. Memorial Exhibition, exhibition catalogue (London: Boundary Gallery, 1994)
Sue Townsend, ‘Sue Townsend on Ghisha Koenig’, in Judith Collins and Elsbeth Lindner eds., Writing on the Wall: Women Writers on Women Artists (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1993), pp. 135-8
'Obituary of Ghisha Koenig', The Daily Telegraph, 2 November 1993, p. 23
Brett Guy, 'The Artist on the Factory Floor Obituary: Ghisha Koenig', The Guardian, 19 October 1993
Obituary, Jewish Chronicle, 29 October 1993, p. 17
Emmanuel Cooper, 'Stitches for Freedom', The Tribune, 6 June 1986, p. 9
Guy Brett, Ghisha Koenig Sculpture 1968–86, exhibition catalogue (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1986)
Anthony Barnett, 'Exhibitions: Ghisha Koenig', Art Monthly, No. 97, June 1986, pp. 20-21
Allegra Taylor, ‘Woman at Works’, She, May 1984, pp. 90-91Cyril Barrett, 'Exhibitions: Ghisha Koenig', Art Monthly, No. 50, October 1981, pp. 15-16
Peter Townsend and William Packer eds., Ghisha Koenig: Sculpture 1968–74, exhibition catalogue (Bedford House Gallery, 1974)
Paul Potts, 'People at Work', The Tribune, 18 February 1966, p. 15
Charles S. Spencer, 'Ghisha Koenig – Sculptress in a Factory', The Jewish Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1966, pp. 29-30
John M. Nash, 'Decor', New Statesman, 1 July 1964, p. 257
'Sculpture For The Home', The Times, 18 July 1963, p. 14

Public collections

Related organisations

Artists International Association (exhibitor)
Chelsea School of Art (student, 1946–48) (student, 1946–48)
Hornsey School of Art (student) (student)
Royal Academy of Arts (exhibitor 1953–63) (exhibitor 1953–63)
Slade School of Art (student, 1948–49) (student, 1948–49)
Society of Portrait Sculptors (exhibitor 1958–61) (exhibitor 1958–61)

Selected exhibitions

Ghisha Koenig: Machines Restrict their Movement, Henry Moore Institute (2017)
Robert Bowman Gallery (2011)
Boundary Gallery, London (2010, 2005)
The Ben Uri Story from Art Society to Museum, Ben Uri Gallery (2001)
Ghisha Koenig 1921–1993. Memorial Exhibition, Boundary Gallery (1994)
Writing on the Wall, Tate Gallery (1993–1994)
Eat Art, group exhibition, Boundary Gallery (1987)
Boundary Gallery (1986)
Ghisha Koenig Sculpture 1968–86, Serpentine Gallery (1986)
Durham Light Infantry Museum (1986)
Gisha Koenig, sculpture, Wylma Wayne, London (1981)
Ghisha Koenig: Sculpture 1968–74, Bedford House Gallery (1974)
Drawings and Sculpture by Ghisha Koenig, Gallery 359, Nottingham (1973)
From the Human Form, group exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery (1968)
Ben Uri 50 Fiftieth Anniversary Special Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1966)
Solo exhibition, Grosvenor Gallery (1966)
Wall Sculpture and Constructions, Grosvenor Gallery (1964)Sculpture For The Home, Grosvenor Gallery (1963)
Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1961)
Royal Academy of Arts (1963, 1960, 1958, 1957, 1956, 1953)
Society of Portrait Sculptors (1958–61)
Jewish Artists in England, Whitechapel Art Gallery (1956)
Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1956)
Artists’ International Association (AIA)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ghisha Koenig]