Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Jankel Adler artist

Jankel Adler was born into a large, orthodox Jewish family in Tuszyn, near Łódź, Congress Kingdom of Poland, then client state of the Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1895; he studied engraving and fine art in Belgrade, Barmen and Düsseldorf and settled in Germany during the 1920s. In 1933 he was forced to flee Nazi Germany at the height of his success after his work was declared 'degenerate' and moved to Paris. Serving in the Polish Army following the outbreak of the Second World War, Adler was evacuated to Scotland in 1940, remaining in Britain and becoming an important figure within the émigré artistic community and beyond.

Born: 1895 Tuszyn, nr. Łódź, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland)

Died: 1949 Aldbourne, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1940

Other name/s: Jankiel Adler, Jakub Adler


Biography

Painter and graphic artist Jankel Adler was born into a large orthodox Jewish family on 26 July 1895 in Tuszyn, near Łódź, Congress Kingdom of Poland, then client state of the Russian Empire (now Poland). He studied engraving in Belgrade in 1912, then art in Barmen and Düsseldorf until 1914. During the First World War, he was conscripted into the Russian army but returned to Poland in 1918, becoming a founder-member of Young Yiddish, a Łódź-based group of painters and writers dedicated to the expression of their Jewish identity, the first of the many avant-garde artistic groups with which he would be associated. In 1920 he moved to Germany, meeting Marc Chagall in Berlin, then returned briefly to Barmen, before settling two years later in Düsseldorf, where he joined the Young Rhineland circle, became friendly with Otto Dix and helped found the International Exhibition of revolutionary artists in Berlin. In 1925 Adler's Planetarium frescos were well received and he exhibited widely. Six years later, in 1931, at the Düsseldorf Academy, he formed an important friendship with Paul Klee, who had a profound influence on his style. In 1933, however, Adler was forced to flee Nazi Germany for France at the height of his success, after his art was declared 'degenerate'. In 1934 his work was included in the Exhibition of German-Jewish Artists' Work Painting – Sculpture – Architecture , mounted by German refugee art dealer, Carl Braunschweig at the Parsons Gallery, Oxford Street (5–15 June 1934), organised in response to such Nazi discrimination. In his absence, Adler's work was also included in the infamous Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition, mounted by the Nazis in Munich in 1937. In the same year, Adler worked with the printmaker Stanley William Hayter at the experimental workshop Atelier 17 in Paris, also meeting Picasso, who became the second major influence upon his style, before moving briefly to the South of France.

In 1939, upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Adler joined the Polish Army in exile and was evacuated to Scotland in 1940, where, after brief internment, he was demobilized in 1941, owing to poor health. In Glasgow, he was reunited with fellow Polish Jewish émigré Josef Herman and they became two of the most influential members of the Glasgow New Art Club, founded by J. D. Fergusson (they have also been credited with inspiring its short-lived offshoot, The Centre, at 7 Scott Street). The Estonian-born Jewish sculptor Benno Schotz organised a private exhibition of Adler's work in his own studio in 1941 and encouraged support from the local Jewish community. Adler also exhibited 24 works at Annans’ Gallery in June the same year (with a catalogue introduction by Fergusson). In October 1942 Adler contributed a short article Memories of Paul Klee to Cyril Connolly's Horizon and in December, participated in an important exhibition of Jewish Art at the Jewish Institute, South Portland Street, in the Gorbals, Glasgow, organised by Schotz with Herman's assistance. This included work by both British Jewish artists' including David Bomberg, and continental European Jewish artists, many associated with the École de Paris, including Chagall, Modigliani and Soutine, as well as by the curators themselves.

In 1942 Adler also stayed briefly in the artists' colony in Kirkcudbright in South West Scotland to prepare for his upcoming solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in Cork Street, London (June–July 1943), organised by German émigrée art dealer Erica Brausen and with a catalogue introduction by the influential art historian and critic Herbert Read. After moving to London, Adler shared a house with 'the two Roberts', the painters Colquhoun and MacBryde, whose style he greatly influenced. In 1944 he participated in a group show in German émigré Jack Bilbo's Modern Art Gallery and also had two solo exhibitions at Gimpel Fils Gallery in London, Studies in Tempera for Kafka's Works by Jankel Adler with Watercolours and Drawings , in spring 1947, followed by a second show in 1948. In the same year, An Artist Seen from One of Many Possible Angles, with illustrations by Adler, was the first publication from Polish-born Francziska and Stefan Themerson's avant-garde Gabberbochus Press.

In 1945 the collector James (Jimmy) Bomford lent Adler Whitley Cottage, situated on his farm at Aldbourne, near Malborough, in Wiltshire, where the artist spent his final years. It was there – a day after hearing of the rejection of his application for naturalisation, probably because of his contacts within anarchist groups – that Jankel Adler died on 25 April 1949. The Arts Council mounted a memorial exhibition in 1951. Further posthumous exhibitions include a joint exhibition with Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky at Ben Uri Gallery in 1957, a major survey exhibition in Wuppertal, Germany (2018), and a survey of his British years at Ben Uri Gallery (2019). Adler's work is held in UK collections including Aberdeen Art Gallery, the Ben Uri Collection, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, Pallant House Gallery, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as in international collections in Australia, Germany, Israel and the USA. Extensive materials relating to his time in Britain are held in the archives of the National Galleries of Scotland, as well as the Tate Archive.

Related books

  • Sarah MacDougall, 'Europe in Scotland: Josef Herman, Jankel Adler and the émigré contribution to Scottish Visual Arts (1940–43)', unpublished conference paper, Scotland in Europe – Curating Connections Creative Practices from 1939 to the Present, The Uniiversity of Edinburgh, 25 February 2022, online conference
  • Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, 'Driftwood Cast Upon a Foreign Shore: Jankel Adler in Britain, 1940–49', in Antje Birthälmer and Gerhard Finckh eds., Jankel Adler und die Avant-Garde: Chagall, Dix, Klee, Picasso (Wuppertal: Von der Heydt-Museum, 2018) pp. 145-167
  • Annemarie Heibel, Jankel Adler (1895–1949) (Münster: Monsenstein und Vannerdat OHG, 2016)
  • Richard Cork, Jankel Adler: The British Years (London: Goldmark, 2014)
  • Emma Chambers, 'Refugees from Nazi Europe' in Lizzy Carey-Thomas ed, Migrations: Journeys into British Art (London, Tate Publishing, 2012), p. 64
  • Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
  • Andrzej Kempa and Marek Szukalak, The Biographical Dictionary of the Jews from Lodz (Łódź :Oficyna Bibliofilów and Fundacja Monumentum Iudaicum Lodzense, 2006)
  • Stefan Themerson, Jankel Adler: An Artist Seen From One of Many Possible Angles (London: Gaberbocchus Press, 1948)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Barmen School of Art (student)
  • Düsseldorf Academy (student)
  • New Art Club, Glasgow (member from 1941)
  • Ohel Club (member)
  • The Centre, Glasgow, 1941 (founder member)
  • New Scottish Group (member from 1942)
  • The Modern Art Gallery (exhibitor)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Jankel Adler: A 'Degenerate' Artist in Britain, 1940–49, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2019)
  • Jankel Adler und die Avant-Garde: Chagall, Dix, Klee, Picasso, Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal (2018)
  • Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2017)
  • A Different Light: British Neo-Romanticism, Pallant House Gallery (2017)
  • Tapestry: Weaving the Century at Dovecot Studios 1912–2012, Compton Verney (2012)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933–1945, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2009)
  • Selection from the Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Art Gallery, (1960)
  • Jankel Adler (1895–1949), Mark Gertler 1891–1939, Bernard Meninsky 1891–1950, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1957)
  • Jankel Adler Memorial Exhibition, The Arts Council (1951)
  • Exhibition of Jewish Art, Ben Uri Gallery (1948)
  • Ben Uri Collection Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1946)
  • Exhibition of Paintings by A.A. Wolmark (Konstam Collection) and a Selection of Work from the Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1945)
  • Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Gallery (1944)
  Jankel Adler
   
Ben Uri collection

Jankel Adler in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Jankel Adler]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Jankel Adler] in the Ben Uri Library