Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Ludwig Meidner artist

Ludwig Meidner was born into a Jewish family in Bernstadt, Germany (now Bierutów, Poland) in 1884 and studied in Berlin and Paris, initially working as a fashion illustrator. In 1912 he began a series of ‘Apocalyptic’ landscapes, which anticipated the carnage of the First World War, while his subsequent work, influenced by Rembrandt, included many religious paintings and self-portraits. In 1939 Meidner fled to England with his wife and former pupil, Else, where he suffered internment, poverty and critical neglect, before returning alone to Germany in 1953 to renewed acclaim.

Born: 1884 Bernstadt, Germany

Died: 1966 Darmstadt, West Germany

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Baruch Meidner


Biography

Painter Ludwig Meidner was born in Bernstadt, Germany (now Bierutów, Poland) on 18 April 1884. By age 18, he had rejected his Jewish faith and embraced socialism. He studied at the Royal School of Art in Breslau from 1903–05 and the Corman and Julian Academies in Paris in 1906. In 1912 he began the Apocalyptic Landscapes series, whose imagery anticipated the carnage and destruction of the First World War, and exhibited with Die Pathetiker group in Herwarth Walden’s influential gallery, Der Sturm. An avowed pacifist following military service, Meidner focussed on Jewish religious and mystical subjects, Rembrandt-inspired self-portraits, and portraits of leading artists and poets. Art critic Leo Kahn, reflecting on Meidner's career in 1953, considered that his early work, characterised by the ‘spiritual ardour’ of expressionism 'seemed to lose some of its vitality in the late 1920s. However, a deep religious experience which led him back to orthodox Judaism' provided new inspiration and the 'fierce individualism of his youth broadened into something more subtle and more universal in spirit’ (Kahn 1953, p. 7). In June 1934, Meidner's work was included in an exhibition at London's Parsons Galleries, which featured 200 works by 'German-Jewish' artists, including Martin Bloch, Max Liebermann and Hans Feibusch, among others, who were unable to exhibit in public in Germany. Meidner’s drawing Jews Praying, was singled out and ‘may be regarded as a stage towards expressionism’ (Jewish Chronicle 1934, p. 22).

With rising anti-Semitism in Berlin, Meidner moved to Cologne in 1935, employed as a drawing teacher in a Jewish school. In 1937 his work featured in the infamous Entartete Kunst [Degenerate Art] touring exhibition, organised by the Nazi regime, to vilify artists who were Jewish, modernist or left-wing. Assisted by Augustus John and other English friends, Meidner and his wife, Else, immigrated to England in August 1939, where he was was interned as a so-called 'enemy alien' from 1940–41: first at Huyton Camp, Liverpool, and then in Hutchinson on the Isle of Man, known as the ‘artists’ camp’ for its roster of notable artist-internees. Else, his former pupil and a painter in her own right, became a domestic during this period. However, for the devout Meidner, internment became a positive experience. Compared to the poverty and isolation of exile, it was a safe, religiously tolerant and intellectually stimulating environment, providing Kosher food and the means to draw, such that, prior to his release, he even asked to remain.

Meidner returned to London after release, taking odd jobs and dependent on support from the émigré community. Participating in Jewish artistic circles, he unsuccessfully attempted to establish a Jewish art society with fellow émigré Jankel Adler (Vinzent, 2005, p. 83). He also joined the Ohel Club in Gower Street organised by émigré brothers Alexander and Benjamin Margulies for Yiddish-speaking Jewish refugee intellectuals. Josef Herman recalled artist members included Adler, Marek Szwarc, Martin Bloch and David Bomberg. Alexander Margulies also provided a conduit to the Ben Uri Art Gallery (where he later became Chairman), and where Meidner exhibited his haunting responses to the Holocaust in the exhibition Subjects of Jewish Interest in December 1946. In 1947 Meidner's contribution to the Ben Uri Spring Exhibition, was praised by the Jewish Chronicle, which noted that the ‘gem’ among his ‘several impressive drawings’ was ‘undoubtedly The Blessing of the Cohanim, a loving representation of a sacred ritual beautifully drawn’ (A.K.S. 1947, p. 19). A joint exhibition by both husband and wife was held at Ben Uri in 1949, to which Ludwig primarily contributed charcoal drawings of Jewish subjects, including synagogue interiors, Jewish 'types' and ‘outstanding’ portrait studies (Rosenau 1949, p. 15). However, he likened the show's limited success to a ‘second-class funeral’ (Out of Chaos, p. 205). In 1953 Meidner, now living in cramped poverty in a tiny Finchley Road flat, eventually came to the attention of Czechoslovak émigré art historian, Dr. J P Hodin, who attempted to bolster his reputation in London and in Germany. Tired of artistic isolation and financial hardship, and in the wake of Hodin's efforts, Meidner finally returned alone to Germany in 1953 to renewed critical and public acclaim. He held numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Hesse State Gallery in Darmstadt (1954) and Dusseldorf Municipal Art Gallery (1956), received portrait commissions from leading personalities, including President Heuss, while publications of his earlier work were re-issued.

Ludwig Meidner died in Darmstadt, West Germany on 14 May 1966. A joint retrospective of work by Ludwig and Else was held at Ben Uri in 2002 in conjunction with the Jewish Museum, Frankfurt. His work is represented in UK public collections including Ben Uri Collection, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, and British Museum. Posthumously, his work in the Ben Uri Collection has been exhibited frquently, while Tate Archive holds Hodin's papers and photographs relating the Meidners.

Related books

  • Peter Wakelin, Refuge and Renewal: Migration and British Art (Bristol: Sansom and Company, 2019)
  • Sibylle Erle, `Blake, Ludwig Meidner and Expressionism`, Visual Culture in Britain, Vol. 19, November 2018), pp. 335-349
  • Ludwig Meidner, Begegnungen / Ludwig Meidner, Encounters (München: Hirmer 2016)
  • Birgit Sander, Eavesdropper on an Age: Ludwig Meidner in Exile (München: Hirmer Verlag, 2016)
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Out of Chaos: Ben Uri: 100 Years in London (London: Ben Uri, 2015), p. 70-71
  • Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson eds., Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2009)
  • Jutta Vinzent, Identity and Image: Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain (1933-1945) (Kromsdorf/Weimar: VDG Verlag, 2006)
  • Jennifer Powell and Jutta Vinzent, Art and Migration: Art Works by Refugee Artists from Nazi Germany in Britain, Humaitas Subsidia Series Number 2 (Birmingham: George Bell Institute, 2005)
  • Georg Heuberger and Erik Riedel, Ludwig und Else Meidner (Frankfurt am Main: Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, 2002)
  • Klaus Hoffmann, Ludwig Meidner 1884-1966 (Wolfsburg: 1985)
  • Thomas Grochowiak, Ludwig Meidner (Recklinghausen: Verlag Aurel Bongers, 1966)
  • Georg Heuberger, Ludwig und Else Meidner (Frankfurt: Judisches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 2002)
  • Carol S Eliel and Eberhard Roters, The Apocalyptic Landscapes of Ludwig Meidner (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989)
  • Jane Glaubinger, 'A Double-Sided Drawing by Ludwig Meidner', The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 69, No. 9, November 1982, pp. 297-307
  • Donald J Brewer, Prints, Drawings and Watercolors of Ludwig Meidner: the Ernest and Lilly Jacobson Collection (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Art Galleries, 1973)
  • 'Art Notes. Ludwig Meidner', AJR Information, 21 October 1949, p. 15
  • A.K.S., 'Art Notes. The Ben Uri in Spring', The Jewish Chronicle, 18 April 1947, p. 19
  • 'Forty Artists Interned', The Jewish Chronicle, 6 September 1940, p. 17
  • 'German-Jewish Artists', The Jewish Chronicle, 8 June 1931, p. 22

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Ohel Club (member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Internment: In Memory of Eva Aldbrook, Ben Uri Gallery, online exhibition (2020)
  • Migrations: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Gloucester Museum (2019)
  • Art-exit: 1939 - A Very Different Europe, 12 Star Gallery (2019)
  • Exodus: Masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection, Bushey Museum (2018)
  • Finchleystrasse: German Artists in Exile in Great Britain and Beyond 1933-45, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London (2018)
  • Entartete Kunst ('Degenerate Art') Remembered, Ben Uri Gallery, online exhibition (2017)
  • Refugees: The Lives of Others - German Refugee Artists to the UK, Ben Uri Gallery (2017)
  • Out of Chaos – Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, Somerset House, London (2015)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933-45, Ben Uri Gallery (2010)
  • Forced Journeys Tour: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45, Williamson Art Gallery & Museum (2010)
  • Homeless & Hidden 1: World Class Collection Homeless & Hidden, Ben Uri Gallery (2009)
  • Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain, c. 1933-45, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2009)
  • Director's Choice: Highlights from the Ben Uri Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Gallery - The London Jewish Museum of Art (2003)
  • Ludwig and Else Meidner, Ben Uri Gallery (2002)
  • Art In Revolt, Germany 1905–1925, Marlborough Gallery (1959)
  • Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1951)
  • The Artist: Self-Portrait and Environment, Ben Uri Gallery (1951)
  • Drawings of Ludwig Meidner, Paintings and Drawings of Else Meidner, Ben Uri Gallery (1949)
  • Spring Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists (1947)
  • Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Gallery (1946)
  • Exhibition of Painting, Sculpture and Architectureby German Jewish Artists, Parsons Galleries (1934)
  Ludwig Meidner
   
Ben Uri collection

Ludwig Meidner in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ludwig Meidner]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Ludwig Meidner] in the Ben Uri Library