Moshe Maurer was born to a Jewish family in Brody, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) in 1891. In London, Maurer made a living making and selling paintbrushes; however, in the 1950s a serious illness curtailed his business activities and he took up painting as a hobby, at age 60. The simplistic quality of his work, based mostly on his experiences growing up within a Russian, orthodox Jewish family, has been characterised as 'primitive' or 'naive' art.
Painter Moshe Maurer was born to a Jewish family in Brody, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) on 28 June 1891. His father owned a paintbrush bristle factory, where the young Maurer worked for a time, besides writing poetry and studying the violin. At age 23 Maurer moved to Belgium, where he married, and in 1940 the couple settled permanently in England.
In London, Maurer made a living making and selling paintbrushes. In the 1950s, however, a serious illness forced him to step back from his business activities. As a result, he took up painting as a hobby, aged 60. By his 70s, Maurer had held exhibitions in England, the Netherlands, and the United States. The simplistic quality of his artwork, informed by Chagall and Matisse and based mostly on his experiences being brought up within an orthodox Jewish family in an eastern European shtetl, has been characterised as ‘primitive’ or ‘naïve’. Maurer created a dream world in which fantasy and Jewish folklore co-exist, expressing a nostalgia for his Russian childhood; in his paintings ‘fairy-tale, religious ritual and recollections of village life have all become poetically interwoven’ (The Times 1957, p. 3).
Maurer was a frequent contributor to Ben Uri Gallery shows from 1951 onwards, and throughout his life, holding a solo exhibition in 1958 which featured Jewish subjects, self portraits, landscapes and still lives. In a review of Ben Uri’s 1955 Annual Exhibition, AJR Information (the journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees) praised the ‘warmth and humanity’ of Maurer’s work and singled out his oil paintings, Music Party, The Chess Players and Purim Carnival, noting their ‘almost childlike simplicity and fantasy, with a touch of caricature as well as pathos’ (P.Z. 1955, p. 8). Further solo shows were held at Gallery One (1958) and the Mercury Gallery (1970, 1971), among others. Maurer also showed with The London Group in 1953, the year he also exhibited with the Royal Society of British Artists (RBS). Frederick laws, art critic of the Manchester Guardian, in his review of Maurer’s exhibition at Gallery One, noted the genuine charm and simplicity of his pictures of childhood, Biblical scenes, moods and self-portraits (Laws 1958, p. 3).
Moshe Maurer died in London, England on 29 May 1971, during the run of his second exhibition at the Mercury Gallery, which was intended to mark his 80th birthday. Posthumously, his work was presented in Homeless & Hidden 2: World Class Collection, Ben Uri Gallery (2009). Maurer's work is represented in the UK public domain in the Ben Uri Collection, which holds two paintings, UFO in a Russian Village and Spring Landscape.
Moshe Maurer in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Moshe Maurer]
Publications related to [Moshe Maurer] in the Ben Uri Library