Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1907 Munich, Germany

Died: 1993 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Year of Migration to the UK: 1929

Other name/s: Heinrich Rosenbaum, Heinz Roland

Biography

Art dealer and gallerist Henry Roland was born into a Jewish family as Heinrich Rosenbaum in Munich, Germany on 31 December 1907. His father was a doctor, and his maternal grandfather, Adolf Stern, was an Old Masters art dealer. Inspired by his grandfather and a formative visit to the Munich Pinakothek aged ten, Roland pursued his passion for art history at the universities of Berlin, Paris, and Munich. He obtained his doctorate in 1928 when he was only 21 years old and began his career dealing art in Berlin. However, as the American Depression impacted the German art market, he relocated to London, England in 1929.

The following year in London proved fortuitous when he met Gustav Delbanco, a fellow Jewish émigré from Hamburg. Starting their venture from a bedroom in a boarding house - due to limited funds - they eventually raised enough money to establish an office. The duo specialised in Old Master paintings and drawings and quickly gained a reputation. In 1935, Roland became a naturalised British citizen and adopted the name Henry Roland, though his friends continued to call him Heinz. As a British citizen he was also able to secure his father’s release from Dachau concentration camp, and with the assistance of a friend from the Home Office, to facilitate the immigration of both his father and stepmother to England. Additionally, as naturalised citizens, both Roland and Delbanco were not subject to the British government’s internment policies, and each took on civil defence duties during the war, with Roland becoming a Senior Air Raid Warden. Despite the war and their new duties, Roland and Delbanco nevertheless maintained their art dealing.

Their resilience paid off, and in May 1945, they expanded their operation by partnering with the British art dealer, Lillian Browse, to establish the Roland, Browse & Delbanco gallery on Cork Street, centre of the burgeoning modern art scene. Browse recalled that most art books in that era were written in German, making the language indispensable and, with little money to their names, Delbanco and Roland found themselves undertaking additional activities such as teaching German (Bohm-Duchen, 2019, p. 26). The gallery flourished, championing artists such as the Polish-born Jewish émigré artist, Josef Herman (with whom they maintained a professional relationship for more than three decades), the Jewish American-born artist Alfred Cohen, along with British artists, Matthew Smith, Victor Pasmore, Graham Sutherland, Philip Sutton, and Henry Moore. Roland, in particular, developed a close friendship with Moore, further enhancing his status in the British art world. While primarily known for modern art, Roland, Browse & Delbanco also dealt with Old Masters. Indeed, their two fields of interest are reflected in two inaugural exhibitions, one entitled Three Centuries of English Drawing and another one dedicated to Old Masters.

Roland’s personal life was equally full. He was married twice: first to Joyce Coe in 1932, with whom he had a son, Anthony, and later to Lilian Haitan, a former Bauhaus student, whose nephew, Henry Hartley, he also adopted. Roland retired from the art world in 1977 when Roland, Browse & Delbanco also ceased operations and their lease at Cork Street expired. (The premises are now occupied by Browse and Derby.) His memoir, Behind the Facade: Recollections of an Art Dealer, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1991, detailed his life and legacy in the art community. Roland’s private collection included works by Pierre Bonnard, Max Ernst, Lyonel Feininger, Erich Heckel, Aristide Maillol, August Macke, Henry Moore, Emil Nolde, Auguste Rodin, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Walter Sickert and Édouard Vuillard, among others. Henry Roland died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany on 4 January 1993. His son Anthony used the proceeds from selling the collection he inherited from his father to finance over 400 films about art and artists, furthering his family’s goal of making art more widely accessible. In summer 2024, Henry Roland featured in Ben Uri's exhibition, Cosmopolis: Refugee Art Dealers in Twentieth-Century London. In the UK public domain, photographs of Roland can be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. In summer 2024 Henry Roland featured in Ben Uri's exhibition: Cosmopolis: The Impact of Refugee Art Dealers in London.