Meyer Klang was born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1880. Little is known about his life including the year of his immigration to England and his training as a painter; however, he was based in London's Jewish community in the East End and produced portraits and still lifes, and participated frequently in mixed exhibitions at Ben Uri Art Gallery.
Painter Meyer Klang was born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1880. Little is known about his life and career, including the year of his immigration to England and his training as an artist. In 1908 he exhibited a number of portraits in the London rooms of the Royal Society of Public Health, among them that of the President of the Society, Professor Smith, the novelist, Israel Zangwill, who was known as the Jewish Dickens for his literary evocation of life in London's East End ghetto, and Zangwill's wife. The Jewish Chronicle praised Klang's talent in capturing his sitters, commenting that 'he is a very good draughtsman and can imprison in paint the personality of his sitter in a manner many a man of wider reputation might well envy. But his brush can suggest grace and tenderness too, and in his Mrs. Israel Zangwill we have a portrait not only of power, but of great charm. Mr. Klang has captured something more than the mere lineaments of the original; he has vitalised his art by the personality of the sitter (Jewish Chronicle 1908, p. 10).
Based in London's East End immigrant Jewish community, Klang mainly produced portraits and still lifes. He was a member of the Arts Committee of the Jewish Association of Arts and Sciences (J.A.A.S.), as suggested by Adrian Wolfe’s 1917 cartoon which depicted the artist gathered beside fellow East Enders, Rebekoff, Klang, Isaac Snowman, Alfred Wolmark and Morris Goldstein (Ben Uri Collection). Klang was closely associated with fellow émigré painter, Alfred Wolmark, whose portrait of Klang was included in Wolmark's 1948 70th birthday retrospective held at Ben Uri, perhaps as a memorial gesture. Klang regularly contributed to Ben Uri group exhibitions, his work featuring seven times between 1934 and 1951, including posthumously; the latter occasion was the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, 1851–1951, marking the Jewish contribution to the nationwide Festival of Britain (1951). During his lifetime Klang also exhibited at the Royal Society of British Arts, Royal Academy of Arts and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Meyer Klang died in London, England in 1948. One still life by Klang is held in the Ben Uri Collection.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Meyer Klang]
Publications related to [Meyer Klang] in the Ben Uri Library