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Lot Essay
Jankel Adler was born in Tuszyn in Poland and was brought up as a Hassidic Jew. His life and artistic activity span several European countries and cultural traditions, due to the political circumstances and events of 1930s and 1940s Europe. He travelled to Germany in 1916 to begin his art studies in Barmen in the Rhineland. During the 1920s he travelled widely in Europe where he formed a friendship with Otto Dix and perhaps more significantly with Paul Klee whom Adler met whilst teaching in Düsseldorf in 1931. After the Nazis gained power in 1933, Adler was labelled a degenerate artist and fled Germany. He worked in Warsaw and Paris before being evacuated to Britain from Dunkirk as a member of the Polish Army of the West in 1940. He arrived in London in 1943 and settled into a studio in Bedford Gardens above the 'Two Roberts', Colquhoun and MacBryde [see lots 218, 220, 250, 251, 252, 254, 256, 257, 260], whom he had previously met in Glasgow.
It was after his arrival in London that, Joanna Pollakowna comments, 'came the last stage of his work, during which Adler's vision was to assume its final and definite form. The time of war, of Shaoh - the Holocaust - demolished the old view of the world; with it, an old language of forms was also smashed to pieces. In order to express the inexpressible, a new voice had to be found, a language made up of broken pieces - eloquent and reticent at the same time; a truly human voice characterized by tragic restraint and simplicity ... In those pictures painted during and immediately after the Second World War, his much-experimented rich texture harmoniously compliments wide black outlines and extensive colour planes' (see J. Pollakowna, Exhibition catalogue, 'Reflections on Jankel Adler's Art', Jankel Adler, Düsseldorf, Kunstalle, 1985, pp. 249-250).
The present work was painted in 1944, when the first news of the horrors of the Concentration Camps were trickling into Britain. Pollakowna notes that, 'Jewish subject matter now reappers with new dramatic force ... Adler used this new-found voice to convey the depths of his nation's suffering' (ibid., p. 251). In Two Figures, the symbolism is present most clearly in the seated figure of the bearded Rabbi. The present work is an important example of Adler's response to the Holocaust and the War. Another commentator on Adler's works writes that, 'he combined themes, motifs, content and atmosphere drawn from Hassidic and Eastern European Jewish folk art with stylistic, formal and technical aspects originating in the progressive European currents of the twenties and early thirties: late German Expressionism, Picasso, Cubism, Constructivism, and even Surrealism. In Adler's work, this merging became both an harmonious blend and a personal style, a life's work that enriched European art in the countries in which he was active' (see N. Guralnik, Exhibition catalogue, 'Jankel Adler: European Artist in Quest of a Jewish Style', Jankel Adler, Düsseldorf, Kunstalle, 1985, p. 202).
It was after his arrival in London that, Joanna Pollakowna comments, 'came the last stage of his work, during which Adler's vision was to assume its final and definite form. The time of war, of Shaoh - the Holocaust - demolished the old view of the world; with it, an old language of forms was also smashed to pieces. In order to express the inexpressible, a new voice had to be found, a language made up of broken pieces - eloquent and reticent at the same time; a truly human voice characterized by tragic restraint and simplicity ... In those pictures painted during and immediately after the Second World War, his much-experimented rich texture harmoniously compliments wide black outlines and extensive colour planes' (see J. Pollakowna, Exhibition catalogue, 'Reflections on Jankel Adler's Art', Jankel Adler, Düsseldorf, Kunstalle, 1985, pp. 249-250).
The present work was painted in 1944, when the first news of the horrors of the Concentration Camps were trickling into Britain. Pollakowna notes that, 'Jewish subject matter now reappers with new dramatic force ... Adler used this new-found voice to convey the depths of his nation's suffering' (ibid., p. 251). In Two Figures, the symbolism is present most clearly in the seated figure of the bearded Rabbi. The present work is an important example of Adler's response to the Holocaust and the War. Another commentator on Adler's works writes that, 'he combined themes, motifs, content and atmosphere drawn from Hassidic and Eastern European Jewish folk art with stylistic, formal and technical aspects originating in the progressive European currents of the twenties and early thirties: late German Expressionism, Picasso, Cubism, Constructivism, and even Surrealism. In Adler's work, this merging became both an harmonious blend and a personal style, a life's work that enriched European art in the countries in which he was active' (see N. Guralnik, Exhibition catalogue, 'Jankel Adler: European Artist in Quest of a Jewish Style', Jankel Adler, Düsseldorf, Kunstalle, 1985, p. 202).