Ismond Rosen was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1924, into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, qualifying as a psychiatrist despite a strong interest in art since young age. In the 1950s he learnt the fundamentals of stone carving In London and Paris. After his return to London in the 1960s, he worked at the Maudsley Hospital and the Hampstead Clinic and dedicated his free time to sculpture and printmaking, a lot of which was first shown at a major exhibition of his work held at the Camden Arts Centre in 1974.
Psychiatrist and artist Ismond Rosen was born into a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1924 and was raised in a hotel run by his father. Rosen's artistic awakening came at the age of six, when seeing local African boys making figures out of clay, he began to copy them and also started carving in wood. Despite the encouragement of eminent artist, Walter Battis (1906–1982), a teacher at his high school, his parents insisted that his academic work came first and he accordingly qualified for admission to the Medical School of Witwatersrand University aged barely 17. After qualifying as a doctor in 1946, he studied psychiatric medicine at Tara Hospital in Johannesburg.
In 1951 Rosen decided to broaden his horizons and come to Europe. He headed first for London, and then for Paris, to study briefly at the Academie Julien and at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he learnt life drawing and stone carving; he also travelled to Nice, Florence and Rome. He returned to London to take up a registrar appointment at the Maudsley Hospital, where he spent six years and where his mentors included prominent British psychiatrists Aubrey Lewis and Dennis Hill. During this period, he produced a striking head of Henry Maudsley, which was placed in a prominent position in the hospital. He married actress Ruth Abramowitz in 1963. He was appointed research psychoanalyst at the Hampstead Clinic in 1967. The Seventies was a decade of immense creativity. He was concurrently chairman of the Paddington Centre for Psychotherapy and ran a busy private practice while continuing with his artistic practice. He produced and presented to the Royal Society of Medicine a bronze head of John Hunter, an abstract carving in marble on the theme of human love, and a work in stainless steel representing Civilisation; also sculpting heads of two further psychiatrists, Erwin Stengel and Henry Rey, as well as portraits of Dorothy Stuart-Russell and Dame Betty Patterson. In addition to sculpting in a variety of media, Ismond was a prolific printmaker, making etchings and lithographs, as well as many drawings, and cartoons, though many were never seen publicly. In 1974, a major exhibition of his work was held at the Camden Arts Centre under the title of Genesis: the Process of Creativity, with 113 works on display. His work was acknowledged by the Fellowship of the Society of Portrait Sculptors.
In 1987 he presented his 1947 white marble carving The Kiss (1947) to the Royal Society of Medicine, where it can now be seen framed by a window on the south facade. The stillness of its simple curves symbolises the importance of early attachments. In Rosen’s own words, ‘The two heads relate above and fuse below in a manner expressive of human loving, both in its earliest mother-child relationship and in adult sexual congress’. Rosen was also active in the media, particularly exploring the relationship between art and psychiatry. He wrote papers for the Tate Gallery on the psychology of the artists Richard Dadd and Otto Dix and spoke there on the work of Constable. The Holocaust Tryptich, which occupied him for the last ten years of his life, is undoubtedly his most outstanding work. This monumental piece consists of three abstract full-size bronze figures: the first depicts Christ as a Jew and thus a potential victim of the Holocaust; the second is a symbol of Nazi atrocity, and the third represents the need for universal religious tolerance and reconciliation. Although Rosen lived long enough to complete the work and to see it exhibited in 1992 in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, London, he died before it could be dedicated in 1996 in the recently restored Kreuzkirche in Berlin. His final creative act was to design an altar, in steel and marble, which will stand near the Triptych. Ismond Rosen died in London in 1996. His work is in UK public collections including the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Wellcome Collection, as well as the Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche in Berlin, Germany and the Vatican in Italy.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ismond Rosen]
Publications related to [Ismond Rosen] in the Ben Uri Library