Philip Naviasky was born to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents in Leeds and was awarded a scholarship to Leeds School of Fine Arts in 1907. In 1912 he became the youngest student accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in London before continuing his studies at the Royal College of Art. He subsequently returned to Leeds, where he practiced as an artist, specialising in oil portraits and landscapes, and taught at Leeds College of Art.His career was curtailed due to failing eyesight during the late 1960s.
Painter Philip Naviasky was born to Polish-Jewish immigrant parents in Leeds, England on 14 January 1894. In 1907 he was awarded a scholarship to study at Leeds School of Art, alongside Russian-born artist Jacob Kramer. Attaining the Senior Art Scholarship in 1911, Naviasky also received two King's Prizes from the South Kensington College for drawing. The following year in 1912, aged just eighteen, he became the youngest student accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he produced one of his finest works, the contemplative Portrait of a Rabbi (Ben Uri Collection, previously owned by distinguished art critic, Brian Sewell (1931-2015), champion of Jewish émigré artists in Britain). Naviasky received a Royal Exhibition award and continued his studies at the Royal College of Art in London. On completion of his studies he returned to Leeds, where he practiced as an artist and art teacher at Leeds College of Art. In 1938 he married local tailoress, rabbi’s daughter and artist, Miss Millicent Astrinsky. Naviasky specialised in oil portraits of women and children and atmospheric landscapes. Among his sitters were Lord Nuffield, and politicians Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden. Largely based in Leeds, he nevertheless travelled widely to Ireland, the South of France, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Balearic Isles, Morocco, the southern United States and Mexico., locations which provided much inspiration for his art.
Naviasky held his first solo exhibition at the Gieves Gallery on Bond Street, London in 1923. The show featured portraits in various media, landscapes, still-lifes, and a number of studies, which demonstrated his versatility as an artist. The Jewish Chronicle praised his portraits of children and Miss Mary Ethel Hunter – the latter described as ‘an essay in smooth colouration’. The review also noted his ‘technical power in some studies in oils of coloured folk in which he overcomes problems of surface illumination with conspicuous success. Some Ghetto studies will also arrest attention, particularly Sketch of an Old Man, a vigorous treatment in blacks of an old dreamer in pathetic pose’ (Jewish Chronicle 1923, p. 17). Alongside Jacob Kramer, in 1940 he contributed work to the West Riding Artists’ Exhibition. The Times commented that both artists showed portraits in their ‘richly individual styles, and Mr. Naviasky proves his power as a landscape painter with Winter Appletreewick, a superb oil delineation of of Yorkshire dale scenery (The Times 1940, p. 6). In 1952 he held a solo show at the Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport. The Manchester Guardian praised the depth of his colours as well as his ‘quiet-toned’ landscapes and his ‘gay’ travel sketches of Spain and the Balearics (N.M.R. 1952, p. 3). The following year, a large retrospective exhibition, covering a period of 30 years, was held at the Cartwright Memorial Art Gallery, Bradford. The show included his early landscapes and portraits, of which the Manchester Guardian singled out Man in a Praying Shawl (1925, Bradford Museum) and a chalk drawing entitled French Workman (1923) (The Manchester Guardian 1953, p. 3). Naviasky also exhibited with the New English Art Club, Royal Society Of Portrait Painters, Royal Glasgow Institute, Royal Academy of Arts, Royal Hibernian Academy and held a number of solo exhibitions across the UK, including at Spink's Galleries, London (1927) and Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston (1934). From 1945 and throught the 1950s, he participated in many Ben Uri shows.
In a 1938 Yorkshire Evening Post interview, released after one of his tours around Europe, and asked why he decided to return to Leeds, Naviasky explained that ‘Yorkshire is a very paintable place and in Leeds itself are some fine river scenes. There are some fascinating industrial subjects for painting, too […] For skies and clarity of the air since I’ve been back, Leeds has won’ (Moxcowhite and Chapman 2021). In the same interview, Naviasky expressed his desire for a closer engagement of local people with art, wishing that artists were ‘used more by the public […] to decorate schools, shops, cafes and homes’. He also suggested that education committees should buy paintings and display them in schools to inspire pupils and thus create ‘an art-conscious generation’. He finally added that council art committees, who set up annual exhibitions of contemporary art, should commit to buying some of the paintings they show (Moxcowhite and Chapman 2021).
Naviasky’s career was curtailed due to his failing eyesight during the late 1960s. Philip Naviasky died in Leeds, England on 19 May 1983 and was buried in New Farnley Jewish Cemetery, Leeds. Naviasky’s work is represented in numerous public collections across the UK, including Ben Uri Collection; Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford; Leicester Museum & Art Gallery and Hepworth Wakefield. A posthumous exhibition was held at Batley Art Gallery in 1978 while Ben Uri featured his collection work in Acquisitions and Long-Term Loan Highlights Since 2001 (2018).
Philip Naviasky in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Philip Naviasky]
Publications related to [Philip Naviasky] in the Ben Uri Library