Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1890 Safed, Ottoman Empire (now Israel)

Died: 1953 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1935

Other name/s: Joseph Abbo, Jussuff Abbu, Jussuff Abbo

Biography

Graphic artist, painter, and sculptor, Jussuf Abbo was born to Syrian-Jewish parents in Safed, in the Ottoman Empire (later Palestine, now Israel) in 1890, and grew up in a farming community. From a young age he showed great promise in art, and after school he worked as a stonemason for the German architect, Otto Hoffmann from 1909–10, who recognised his talent and arranged his study at the Berlin University of the Arts in 1913. Abbo received his maste's degree from the Royal Academy of Applied Arts in 1919, before establishing a studio in the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts; becoming prominent in Berlin avant-garde circles and a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (Association of German Artists), he created abstract yet expressionist works with an emphasis on psychological states and emotion. In the 1920s he had significant Berlin shows. By 1935, he had become stateless due to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, but managed to obtain Egyptian nationality.

Forced to flee Germany due to the rise of Nazism and anti-Semitic legislation Abbo, his wife Ruth Schulz, and their first son, left for England, via the Netherlands, arriving in London on 26 September 1935. Before his departure, two prestigious London galleries, Wildenstein & Co and the Leicester, expressed interest in showing Abbo's work. However, most of his artworks were delayed in port in Hamburg and did not arrive in Hull until 1937, by which time the shows had been cancelled. Furthermore, when the sculptures and tools finally arrived, many works had been damaged in transit and Abbo could not afford the repairs (Dogramaci 2019, p. 118). In addition, in his absence, in 1937 Abbo's works were branded as 'Degenerate' by the Nazis, removed from all public museums in Germany and destroyed. By this time, Abbo had become increasingly depressed as, in the words of his wife, he was 'an artist with no artworks.' In London, Abbo presented some of his works at the Victoria & Albert Museum – probably small sculptures which he had brought with him and which he did not intend to sell. However, due to financial difficulties, he was forced to sell many pieces, including to the director of the Tate. In order to survive, Abbo worked in foundries for other sculptors (Abbo 1986, p. 182). In 1938, he moved into a small studio in Lambolle Road, Hampstead, and his family found accommodation nearby (in Parkhill Road, and later in Strathray Gardens). In 1937 Abbo was commissioned to model a bust of the English MP, George Lansbury. He started work on the bust in 1938 and travelled to Paris in February 1939 to direct the bronze casting. Here he met French Sculptor Charles Despiau and other well-known Parisian artists and was asked to complete several works for the Salon des Tuileries. This trip and the positive reception of his artwork renewed his spirits. In 1939, the Lansbury bust was displayed at the Second Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Contemporary English Artists in Osterley Park; The Times commented: 'Mr. Abbo [...] has the comparatively rare capacity to combine compact modelling of the general form with full subtlety of expression. He avoids alike the extremes of naturalistic imitation and of empty abstraction, and his work really is a translation of the subject into terms of enduring bronze' (6 July 1939, p. 12). From 1939, Abbo produced small clay sculptures in Sussex, where his wife had moved with the children in order to live more cheaply. The success of the Osterley Park exhibition was followed by favourable reviews of his bronze Bust in the 1941 exhibition of sculpture, pottery and sculptors'' drawings, hosted by the left-leaning Artists International Association (AIA) and Free German League of Culture at the FGLC premises in Hampstead, and in the early 1940s Abbo also exhibited with both the Leger and Leicester Galleries. However, as the war continued, work dried up and Abbo registered as unemployed. In 1944, he became an unskilled worker for a building company in Sussex. In 1944, his sculpture Torso was lent to the Opening Exhibition of the Ben Uri Gallery. However, no longer able to pay for his studio, in 1945 he destroyed most of the works he had created there, as he could neither afford to move them nor had space to store them. In the last years of his life, Abbo suffered with poor health until his death in 1953, following an operation at the Royal Cancer Hospital in Fulham.

Posthumous exhibitions of Abbo's work include Berlin (1964) and Esslingen (1977) and he was included in the touring exhibition Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien 1933–45 (Berlin, Oberhausen, Vienna, London, 1986). He was the subject of an exhibition at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover (December 2019 – March 2020), based on works donated from his daughter's estate in 2018 and 2019. Abbo's work is represented at the People's History Museum, Manchester; Museum of Modern Art, New York and Berlinische Galerie, among others.

Related books

Burcu Dogramaci, 'Abbo in Exile, or: On the Difficulty of Cultural Translation', in Dorothea Schone ed., Jussuf Abbo (Cologne: Wienand Verlag & Medien, 2019), pp. 116-125
Anja Wachter and Esther Mieves, Jussuf Abbo in New/Old Homeland: R/Emigration of artists after 1945 (Berlin: Kunsthaus Dahlem, 2017), pp. 160-166
Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson: Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933–45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
Jutta Vinzent, 'List of Refugee Artists (Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists) from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945)', in Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933–1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006), pp. 249-298
Lynda Morris, Émigré Artists Archive in EAST International (Norwich: Norwich Gallery, 2005)
Ruth Abbo, 'Uber den Verlust einer kunstlerischen Existenz. Jussuf Abbo im Exil', in Hartmut Krug and Michael Nungesser, Kunst im Exil in Großbritannien (Berlin: Frölich & Kaufmann, 1986) pp. 181-184
Jewish Chronicle, 28 November 1941, p. 21
'Contemporary Art at Osterley Park', New Statesman and Nation, Vol. 18, No. 438, 15 July 1939, p. 85
s, ‘Bust of Mr. Lansbury’, The Times, 6 July 1939, p. 12

Public collections

Related organisations

Berlin University of the Arts (student)
Free German League of Culture (or Freier Deutscher Kulturbund) (attended meetings)
Royal Academy for Applied Arts (student)

Selected exhibitions

Jussuf Abbo, Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin (2019–2020)
Jussuf Abbo – the Sculptor in the Bedouin Tent, Agial Art Gallery, Beirut (2018)
Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933–45, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2009)
Kunstgalerie Esslingen (1977)
Retrospective Exhibition, Galerie S Ben Wagin, Berlin (1965)
Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1944)
Artists of Fame and of Promise, Leicester Galleries, London (1943)
Exhibition of Nudes by Contemporary Artists, The Leger Galleries, London (1943 and 1942)
Contemporary Continental Art, the Leger Galleries, London (1941)
Second Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Contemporary English Artists, Osterley Park (1939)
25th Annual Exhibition of the Association of German Artists, Cologne (1929)
Deutscher Künstlerbund Exhibition, Berlin (1929)
Solo Exhibition, Ferdinand Moller Galleries, Berlin (1924)
Solo Exhibition, Von Garvens Gallery, Hanover (1921)
Free German League of Culture

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Jussuf Abbo]