Josef Herman was born into a Jewish, working-class family in Warsaw, Poland in 1911 and attended the Warsaw School of Art (1930–31). Following mounting anti-Semitism, he left Poland for Brussels in 1938, and then, following the Nazi invasion, fled via the South of France, arriving in Glasgow in 1940, where alongside Jankel Adler he contributed to the city's cultural renaissance until 1943. He is best-known for his portrayal of the mining community of Ystradgynlais in South Wales, where he lived from 1944–52 .
Painter and draughtsman Josef Herman was born into a working-class Jewish family in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland (now Poland) on 3 January 1911. After leaving school, aged 12, his apprenticeship as a typesetter and graphic designer was cut short by lead poisoning and he attended the Warsaw School of Art (1930–31). He first exhibited in Warsaw in 1932, co-founding the left-wing artists’ group 'the Phrygian Bonnet' (1935-37); his earliest sketches depict urban workers and peasants in the Carpathian Mountains. Following mounting anti-Semitism, Herman fled Poland in 1938 for the Brussels of Rembrandt and Breughel, but once there, became inspired by the earthy tones and monumental figures of Flemish Expressionists Frits Van den Berghe, Gustave de Smet and Constant Permeke.
Following the German invasion in May 1940, Herman fled again to southern France where, mistaken for a Polish deserter and deported on a Canada-bound troopship diverted to Liverpool, he arrived ‘like a stranger, among strangers, in the night’ (Osmond 2006, p. 16), going on to Glasgow, where the Estonian-born Jewish sculptor Benno Schotz reunited him with fellow Polish artist Jankel Adler; alongside Scottish colourist J. D. Ferugsson, they contributed to a ‘surprising resurgence of vitality in all the creative arts in the city at a time which could hardly have seemed less propitious for such a revival' (Farr 1968, pp. 3-7). As active members of the New Art Club and its brief offshoot The Centre. Herman designed costumes for the Celtic Ballet Club’s We are this Land: A Russian Masque (1941), conceived his own Ballet of the Palette (1942), and assisted Schotz in realising the first Jewish Art exhibition in Scotland at the Gorbals in December 1941. Herman’s outpouring of nostalgic drawings (the ‘Memory of Memories’, some later exhibited at Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1989), evoked his lost Warsaw; darkening after the news of the murder of his entire family in the Warsaw ghetto, leading to a breakdown from which Adler nursed him back to health. Herman’s first solo exhibition at James Connell & Sons in October 1941, including Refugees (Ben Uri Collection), was reprised at Aitken Dott & Sons, Edinburgh in February 1942.
In 1943 Herman moved to London to prepare for his exhibition (with L. S. Lowry) at Alex Reid & Lefevre galleries, also meeting David Bomberg and refugee painters Ludwig Meidner and Martin Bloch, with whom he attended the short-lived, Polish cultural Ohel Centre in Gower Street. In summer 1944 on a chance visit to the Welsh mining village of Ystradgynlais in the Swansea valley, Herman experienced an artistic epiphany after seeing a group of miners silhouetted on a bridge against the setting sun, realising that he had struck upon ‘the source of my work for many years to come’ (cited Bohm-Duchen 2009, p. 78.) . Over the next eleven years, he created his best-known works, admired by art critic John Berger Burlington Magazine for their ‘uncompromising truth; faces, strong and large as their expressions, warmly true of their type; figures in landscape that “belong”, that seem to have grown like trees on soil which is theirs’ (Berger 1955, p. 183).
In 1949 Herman exhibited jointly with Martin Bloch at Ben Uri Gallery; also showing in Twelve Contemporary Artists (1958); Fifty Drawings by Josef Herman (1965), and Josef Herman and Moelwyn Merchant (1984). In 1951 he was commissioned to produce a mural for the Festival of Britain and also contributed to Glasgow's Festival of Jewish Arts. He exhibited with émigré art dealers, Roland, Browse & Delbanco (1946, 1948, 1952, then regularly until 1975), at the Geffrye Museum (with Henry Moore, 1954), at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1956), Camden Arts Centre (1980), the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (1989), Abbot Hall, Kendal (2005), and on numerous occasions with Flowers and Flowers East Galleries, who represented him for many years. In 1962 he was awarded the Eisteddfod gold medal for his services to Welsh art, followed by an OBE for services to British Art in 1981; he was elected a Royal Academician (RA) in 1990. Herman also amassed an important collection of African artefacts including wooden carvings, and a Fang head from Jacob Epstein's personal collection (sold by Christie’s after his death).
Josef Herman died in London, England on 19 February 2000. A biography by Monica Bohm-Duchen was published in 2009; a 2011 centenary exhibition at Ben Uri, Josef Herman: Warsaw, Brussels, Glasgow, London, 1938-44 (toured to Royal West of England Academy, Bristol), explored his little-known early years. Herman’s work is represented in numerous UK public collections including Ben Uri Collection, the National Museum of Wales, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Tate, and the V&A.
Josef Herman in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Josef Herman]
Publications related to [Josef Herman] in the Ben Uri Library