Ben Uri Research Unit

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


Renate Meyer artist

Renate Meyer was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1930 and came to England as a refugee from Nazism with her parents in 1933 or 1934. She studied art at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London and was a versatile artist who experimented with a wide range of media: paints, text, thread, papier-mâché and textiles. She also published books for young children, including a series for renowned publishers, The Bodley Head, and established the Keeping Gallery in her home after the death of her husband, illustrator, Charles keeping, in 1988, celebrating her life in Britain through a detailed frieze combining painting and embroidery.

Born: 1930 Berlin, Germany

Died: 2014 Shortlands, Bromley, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1933

Other name/s: Renate Meyer Keeping, Renate Keeping


Biography

Artist and illustrator, Renate Meyer was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany on 5 March 1930, daughter of Peter Ferdinand Meyer, a cardiologist, and his wife Eva, née Tauber. Following the rise of Nazism, Meyer came to Britain with her family in 1933 or 1934, gaining British citizenship in 1938. After boarding school, Meyer studied art at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London from 1947, where she met her future husband, the illustrator Charles Keeping, whom she married in 1952. She visited relatives in the newly-founded state of Israel in 1949, where communal living at the heart of kibbutz life made a deep impression. Returning to England, the Keepings eventually established a large family home in south London from 1960. Here, Meyer experimented with a wide range of media: paints, text, thread, papier-mâché and textiles, often in conjunction with printmaking; the couple each had a press at home. Her work was included in joint exhibitions at the Ben Uri Gallery in 1951 and 1952, and in 1955 she exhibited alongside her male contemporaries, Alfred Harris and Laurence Marcuson in a show entitled Three Young Painters. In a review of the latter The Times observed: ‘Her two largest canvasses, Sardinian Sunday and Cowley Day Nursery, Brixton, are both remarkable for their observant studies of children […] A charming sense of humour saves this artist from sentimentality' (The Times, 15 December 1955, p. 5). The painting of Cowley Day Nursery presented rows of children asleep outdoors at the nursery, located on the corner of Brixton Road and Vassall Road, an early representation of the first generation of postwar Afro-Caribbean infants in Lambeth, recalling the work of fellow émigré, Eva Frankfurther, who portrayed the Windrush generation at work in the East End. Stephen Bone, writing in The Manchester Guardian, described as ‘outstanding’ Meyer’s work depicting the ante-natal ward of the Beckenham Maternity Hospital, exhibited in 1957 at the Felix Gallery in London (Bone, 20 June 1957, p. 5). Bone also singled out her pastel drawings of mothers with children, exhibited the same year in the group show of the Regent Street Group at Walker’s Gallery, London, featuring works by artists from the Regent Street Polytechnic (Bone 29 October 1957, p. 5).

Meyer became a member of the 62 Group of progressive textile artists (founded in the 1960s and which still continues today), regularly showing her textile works under the group's auspices until her death in 2014. Meyer also produced picture books for children, including a series for renowned publishers, The Bodley Head, between 1968 and 1973, often using textiles, paint and papier-mâché. Vicki (1968), her first picture book (entirely without words and inspired partly by her own daughter, Vicki) was praised by Shelagh Harrison in the Guardian, who noted: ‘She’s obviously a gifted and forceful artist, and I thought many of her vivid projections of a child’s loneliness were psychologically disturbing (Harrison 1968, p. 12). However, some critics expressed negative opinions about the book and considered both theme and style too sophisticated for children to understand. Her picture book Hyde and Seek (1969) confirmed Meyer as ‘one of the avant-garde artists in contemporary children’s picture books’ (von Schweinitz 1969, p. 3). In the 1970s she also illustrated classic novels by Daphne du Maurier and Alistair MacLean for Heron Books. Meyer held a solo exhibition in 1975 at the Ben Uri Gallery, the invitation including a poem by Meyer with poignant observations on the difficulties of childhood. Meyer herself had three children and adopted a fourth, Frank, of Caribbean heritage, who was originally fostered by the Keepings. From 1960 onwards, Meyer and her husband lived in Shortlands, in south east London, where, after his death in 1988, she established the Keeping Gallery in their home in his memory, exhibiting work by both and holding regular art classes. In 1982 she began a series of wall pieces, combining painting and sewing to form a frieze, telling the story of her family and their difficult assimilation into British culture, in which many of its complex mixed media elements were inspired by iconic images taken from everyday packaging and advertising.

Renate Meyer-Keeping died in Shortlands, Bromley, England on 24 March 2014. Months after her death examples of her textile pieces were shown at the annual Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, London. Her artwork is held in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection and at the Keeping Gallery, while examples of her children's books are represented in the Alderson Collection at the University of Newcastle. In summer 2023 her work featured in

Related books

  • Brian Alderson, Seeing Picture books (London, National Book League, 1973)
  • Renate Meyer, Mr. Knitted and the Family Tree (London: The Bodley Head, 1972)
  • Renate Meyer, Hide-and-seek: a Picture Book (Scarsdale, N.Y.: Bradbury Press, 1972)
  • Renate Meyer, The Story of Little Knittle and Threadle: a Picture Book (London: Bodley Head, 1971)
  • Eleanor von Schweinitz, 'Hide and Seek by Renate Meyer', The Times, 3 May 1969, p. 3
  • Shelagh Harrison, 'Domesticity for Beginners: Shelagh Harrison Reviews Some Books for the Very Young', The Guardian, 6 December 1968, p. 12
  • Renate Meyer, Vicki, (London: The Bodley Head, 1968)
  • Neville Wallis, 'Students at Work', The Observer, 23 March 1958, p. 15
  • Stephen Bone, 'The Good, the Bad and the Curious: London Exhibitions', The Manchester Guardian, 20 June 1957, p. 5
  • Jack Beddington, Young Painters of Today (London: The Studio, 1957)
  • Stephen Bone, 'Paintings with Personality', The Manchester Guardian, 29 October 1957, p. 5
  • Stephen Bone, 'Art for Schools: Gaiety and Realism in London Exhibitions', 13 February 1956, p. 5
  • 'Ben Uri Gallery', The Times, 15 December 1955, p. 5

Public collections

Related organisations

  • 62 Group of Textile Artists (member)
  • Regent Street Polytechnic (student)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • If not now when: Generations of women in sculpture in Britain 1960-2022, Hepworth Wakefield (2023)
  • Renate Keeping - Ripeness and Age, The Knitting & Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace (2014)
  • Jewish Artists The Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Gallery (1994)
  • Prints and Drawings from the Permanent Collection, Ben Uri Gallery (1989)
  • Picture Fair, Ben Uri Gallery (1979)
  • Renate Meyer, Ben Uri Gallery (1975)
  • Looking at Picture Books, National Book League (1973)
  • Picture Fair, Ben Uri Gallery (1968)
  • Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1961)
  • Regent Street Group Exhibition, Walker’s Gallery, London (1957)
  • group show, Felix Gallery (1957)
  • Tercentenary Exhibition of Contemporary Anglo-Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1956)
  • Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Alfred Harris, Renate Meyer, Lawrence Marcuson, Ben Uri Gallery (1955)
  • Annual (non-Jury) Exhibition, Ben Uri Gallery (1955)
  • Summer Exhibition by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1952)
  • Autumn Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings by Contemporary Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Gallery (1951)
  • Royal Academy of Arts (1951)
  Renate Meyer
   
Ben Uri collection

Renate Meyer in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Renate Meyer]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Renate Meyer] in the Ben Uri Library