Naomi Blake was born into a Jewish family in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia (now Mukachevo, Ukraine) in 1924 and survived deportation to Auschwitz, later escaping during a death march from Brannau. After the war, she lived in Milan, Rome and Jerusalem, before settling in north London in 1952, later studying at Hornsey School of Art (1955–60) and exhibiting her work, often inspired by her wartime experiences, from 1962. Many of her sculptures commemorating the Holocaust are publicly sited, including at Fitzroy Square and St Ethelberga's Church in London, the Scarman Centre at the University of Leicester, and The Holocaust Centre (Beth Shalom), Nottinghamshire; Blake was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors (FRBS) in 1993.
Sculptor Naomi Blake (née Zisel Düm) was born into a Jewish family in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia (now Mukachevo, Ukraine) on 11 March 1924, the youngest of ten children; her parents ran a textile shop. She changed her birth name Zisel (meaning sweet) to Naomi in 1948. In 1938 the German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with annexation of the Sudetenland; this was followed by invasion of the Czech lands in March 1939, and creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; by the end of 1944 all parts of the former Czechoslovakia were under Nazi control. In the same year, Nazi legislation forced the Blake family into a ghetto, from where they were subsequently deported to Auschwitz. Within a few weeks, Zisel and her sister, Malchi, were moved to a transit camp and thence to Brannau, near Bydgoszcz, where they were forced to work in a labour camp munitions factory assembling bombs, which they attempted to sabotage. In early 1945, they escaped from a death march led by German soldiers trying to evade the advancing Russians. Although they survived, 24 out of 32 members of their family perished in the Holocaust, including their grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts and uncles.
Once the war ended, Blake decided to travel to Palestine to help the burgeoning Jewish independence movement carve out their own state, and she boarded an illegal ship, which was intercepted by the British. On arrival, she was held at the Atlit detention camp near Haifa. After her release, she joined the Palmach, a Zionist military organisation, but was shot in the neck by a British soldier on 1 April 1947. While recovering in hospital she was given a piece of olivewood to carve to pass the time, igniting her passion for sculpture. Following a brief marriage to Zvi, an aspiring opera singer, she lived in Milan and Rome, before settling in north London in 1952. There she met and married her second husband, German refugee, Asher Blake. Between 1955 and 1960 Blake took night classes at Hornsey School of Art, making ceramic pots and portrait sculpture, before progressing to abstract pieces, to which she later reintroduced a figurative element. Initially, she worked in clay, then polystyrene, casting her final sculptures in bronze. Her work shows the influence of British modernist sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and often features faceless figures taking shelter or in flight, clasping each other as a symbol of hope and solidarity. Despite her tragic experiences and personal losses, her sculptures are full of life and optimism. She stated, ‘There is something positive in the human figure – there is a lot of good in people […] with my past, if I were pessimistic, somehow, it wouldn’t have been worthwhile surviving’ (Simon 1986, p. 10). She also had a passion for Jewish texts and learning, sculpting expressive Biblical subjects from the Old Testament.
Blake began exhibiting in 1962 with the Royal Society of Portrait Sculptors in London, followed by the Salon de Paris in 1963. She participated in the Annual Summer Exhibition at Ben Uri Gallery in 1964, the Annual Open Exhibition in 1966 and her work was also included in several group exhibitions, including Characters from the Bible (1988) and Czech Artists from the Collection (1998). She also served on the Council of Ben Uri's Art Committee between 1975 and 1993. In 1973 she created her first interfaith piece for the Council of Christians and Jews, showing her commitment to promoting peace among religions. In 1974 she met fellow sculptor, Doreen Kern, during a sculpture course taught by Royal Academician Howard Bates at the Henrietta Barnett School in Hampstead; the two subsequently exhibited together on a number of occasions. She was elected an associate member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors (ARBS) in 1979 and became a fellow (FRBS) in 1993. In 1979 she donated a major abstract sculpture to Camden Council in gratitude for being accepted as a refugee from Czechoslovakia. In 2014, to mark her 90th birthday, the Curwen & New Academy Gallery in London held a retrospective and her daughter, Anita Peleg, published two books devoted to her mother's life and work, Naomi Blake: Dedication in Sculpture, a comprehensive catalogue of her sculptures, and Glimmer of Hope: The Story of Naomi Blake.
Naomi Blake died in London, England on 7 November 2018. Her work is represented in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, while a number of her larger sculptures are in public locations, including Fitzroy Square, Great Ormond Street Hospital, and St Ethelberga's Church in London; Norwich and Bristol Cathedrals; the Scarman Centre at the University of Leicester; the Holocaust Centre, Nottinghamshire; and Norris Lea, Kingsbury, Oxford, and Leeds synagogues; as well as in private collections, including those of HRH Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales. In 2021 one hundred of her works were exhibited in her home prior to its sale; the RBS featured Blake in its celebration of pioneering women sculptors, and Anita Peleg spoke on her mother as part of the Insiders/Outsiders cultural Festival vcelebrating the contribution of the so-called Hitler émigrés.
Naomi Blake in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Naomi Blake]
Publications related to [Naomi Blake] in the Ben Uri Library