Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1958 Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, England

Biography

Painter, art tutor and curator, Julie Held was born in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, England in 1958, to German-Jewish émigrés who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Her mother, Gisela Held, escaped as a child in 1937 and later became a professional sculptor. Growing up in a family that cherished German-Jewish traditions, Held felt a strong connection to German culture and painting, despite being born in England. She explained, ‘It feels very hard to be English. It is something that all émigrés must feel, that your background enriches your life but can also be very alienating’ (interview with Julia Weiner).

Held’s parents sparked her interest in painting from a young age. Aged three, she received a large sketchbook for Christmas, and as a teenager, she was enthralled by an Edvard Munch exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Recalling this experience, Held observed, ‘I was completely captivated. I thought, he must be able to communicate his distress and he has taken it away from his situation and it is speaking to me all this time later. That is when I absolutely made up my mind to become a painter – in that gallery’ (Phillips 2000, p. 59). She aspired to make her inner feelings tangible through painting (Video Portrait: Julie Held). Held trained at Camberwell School of Art (now UAL, 1977–81) and won the Picker Fellowship at Kingston Polytechnic, where she had her first solo show in 1982. She then completed a post-graduate diploma at the Royal Academy Schools (1982–85). Her talent was recognised early on; she won the Royal Overseas League's first prize in 1984 and the Lucy Morrison Prize in 1986, the same year in which Godfrey Pilkington, of the Piccadilly Gallery, London presented her solo exhibition.

In 1976, at the age of 18, Held’s mother died after a long illness, profoundly affecting her. She became acutely aware of death and ‘internalised the presence of death’ (London Group interview). This experience inspired a series of portraits imagining how her mother would have aged, including one depicting her on her 90th birthday with her father, who had since remarried. Rooted in Jewish family life and childhood memories, Held’s work is imbued with both a sense of loss and presence. She has frequently depicted the celebration of the Sabbath and Jewish festivals as they were when her mother was alive, using these scenes as ‘a way of recreating something that I no longer have. When a mother dies, things like big family suppers fall apart. [...] These paintings are a way of reuniting with those who are no longer with us’ (Interview with Julia Weiner). Her paintings of deserted tables evoke both the desolation felt after her mother’s death and the broader destruction of Jewish life by the Holocaust (Fealdman 1998, p. 15).

Held takes inspiration from a wide range of artists, such as Titian, Rembrandt, Bonnard, Matisse, and Munch. Her use of rich, bright colours is both garish and enthralling, reflecting the complexity of human emotion. While described as a colourist, an expressionist, and a symbolist, Held prefers to identify as a ‘Julie Heldist’ (Crane and Company). Felicity Owen noted in a review of Held’s 1993 exhibition at the Piccadilly Gallery in Country Life that ‘In the tradition of German expressionism, she revels in colour, particularly when she paints the wild Cornish coast that appeals to her yearning for eternity’ (Owen 1993, p. 32).

In 1996 Held featured in Rubies & Rebels, Barbican Art Gallery, London, an exploration of work by Jewish women artists. Held has shown as a solo artist at Ben Uri (1996) and jointly with Indian émigré painter, Shanti Panchal in Regard and Ritual (touring, 2007). She has exhibited with the Piccadilly Gallery, Boundary Gallery, and Sternberg Centre, and has had solo exhibitions including Living London at Eleven Spitalfields Gallery, London (2014) and the London Jewish Culture Centre (LJCC, 2015), and in Prague, Leipzig, and Hamburg. In 2024, her work featured in Painting with an Accent: German-Jewish Emigre Stories, curated by Ben Uri at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London. Held regularly participates in the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibitions, The Jerwood Drawing Prize, and The Threadneedle Prize. Beyond her artistic practice, Held has curated shows including Inclusion Exclusion (1996) and Repercussions – German Identities, Elastic Borders (1997), part of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music. She has taught at various institutions, including Kingsway College, Camden Institute, Barnet College of Further Education, Portsmouth and Wolverhampton Universities, and is a visiting lecturer at the Royal Drawing School in London. She is a member of the London Group, New English Art Club, Royal Watercolour Society, and The Arborealists. Her painting Girl with Cat (2000) was acquired by Ben Uri as part of the international Jewish Artist of the Year Award (2001). Julie Held's work is represented in UK public collections, including the Ben Uri Collection; Ruth Borchard Collection (self-portraits); Nuffield College, University of Oxford and the Women's Art Collection, University of Cambridge.