Adler, Jakub [Jankel] (1895–1949), painter, was born on 26 July 1895 in Tuszyn, near Łódź, Poland, the eighth of the twelve children of Eliasz Adler, a timber and coal dealer, and his wife, Hana Laja, née Fiter. Adler grew up in Łódź in the world of Hasidic Jewry, which had a lasting influence on his subject matter. After training as a goldsmith in ...
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David Garshen Bomberg (1890–1957) self-portrait, 1931 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Bomberg, David Garshen (1890–1957), painter, was born at 18 Florence Street, Birmingham, on 5 December 1890, the fifth of the eleven children of Abraham Bomberg (1867/8–1938), a Polish immigrant leather-worker, and his wife, Rebecca, née Klan (1863/4–1912), whose family kept an inn and reared horses. In 1895 the family moved to ...
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Melville Calman (1931–1994) by Stephen Hyde, 1986 © Stephen Hyde; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
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Calman, Melville [Mel] (1931–1994), cartoonist and illustrator, was born on 19 May 1931 at 64 Linthorpe Road, Stamford Hill, London, the youngest of the three children of Clement Calman, timber merchant, and his wife, Anna. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants, his father from ...
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Costa [née Mendes], Catherine [Rachel] da (1679–1756), miniature painter, was born in London in 1679, the eldest daughter of Dr Fernando (Moses) Mendes (1647–1724) and his wife, Isabel (Rachel) Henriques (d. 1691), daughter of Diego Rodrigues Marques. Mendes's parents were born in ...
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Marilyn McCully
Fisher, Sandra Maureen (1947–1994), painter, was born on 6 May 1947 in New York, the elder of two daughters of Gene Sapiro Fisher (b. 1918), builder, and his wife, Ethel Blankfield Kott (b. 1925), painter. She was raised in Florida and ...
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Mark Gertler (1891–1939) self-portrait, 1920 by permission of Luke Gertler / Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, London
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Sarah MacDougall
Gertler, Mark (1891–1939), painter, was born on 9 December 1891 at 16 Gun Street, Spitalfields, London, the youngest of the five children of Louis Gertler (c.1858–1917), master furrier, and his wife, Kate (Golda) Berenbaum (c.1862–1932). In 1893 the family returned to their native ...
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Diana Souhami
Gluck, Hannah [real name Hannah Gluckstein; known as Gluck] (1895–1978), portrait painter, was born on 13 August 1895 in Canfield Gardens, West Hampstead, London, the elder child of Joseph Gluckstein (1854–1930) and his American wife, Francesca Hallé (1875–1958). She pronounced her chosen name with a short vowel sound (to rhyme with ‘duck’). On the backs of photographic prints of her paintings, sent out for publicity, she always wrote '...
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Charlotte Yeldham
Goodman [née Salaman], Julia (1812–1906), portrait painter, was born on 9 November 1812 in London, the eldest daughter of the fourteen children of Simeon Kensington Salaman, a member of a Jewish family of German and Dutch origin and warden of the Western Synagogue...
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Hamermesh, Mira (1923–2012), painter and documentary film-maker, was born Mirjam Hamermesz in Łódź, Poland, on 15 July 1923, the third and youngest child of Josef Meir Hamermesz, manufacturer, and his wife, Fajga, née Lerer. Her brother, Mordechai, was born in 1918, and her sister, ...
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Solomon Alexander Hart (1806–1881) self-portrait Exeter City Museums & Art Gallery
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Helen Valentine
Hart, Solomon Alexander (1806–1881), historical genre painter, was born in April 1806 in Plymouth, son of Samuel Hart (fl. 1785–1830), a Jewish engraver and teacher of Hebrew. Hart's mother died when he was young and his father married again. Two brothers are known, ...
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Maker: Peter Keen
Gerard Hoffnung (1925–1959) by Peter Keen, late 1950s © Peter Keen; collection National Portrait Gallery, London
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Richard Ingrams
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Hoffnung, Gerard [formerly Gerhardt] (1925–1959), cartoonist and musical humorist, was born in Grünewald, Berlin, on 22 March 1925, the only child of German-Jewish parents, Ludwig Hoffnung, a wealthy grain merchant, and his wife, Hilde, a widow, whose first husband, Schnabel, was killed in the First World War. His mother was a keen amateur musician and artist who encouraged his artistic talents. From his earliest years he was interested in the macabre—fairy tales, practical jokes, and the comic drawings of the famous German illustrators and caricaturists....
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Ronald Brooks Kitaj (1932–2007) self-portrait, 1993–4 © estate of R. B. Kitaj / National Portrait Gallery, London
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Kitaj, Ronald Brooks [Ron] (1932–2007), painter and essayist, was born Ronald Brooks Benway on 29 October 1932, in Chagrin Falls, near Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sigmund Benway and his wife, Jeanne, née Brooks (d. 1995), a steel mill worker and teacher. His father was born in ...
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Monica Bohm-Duchen
Kramer, Jacob (1892–1962), painter and graphic artist, was born on 26 December 1892 in Klintsy, in the province of Chernigov in Ukraine, the only son of Max (Meir) Kramer (d. 1915), a court painter who worked in a naturalistic style and who had studied under ...
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Langdon, (Israel) David (1914–2011), cartoonist and illustrator, was born at 86 Canrobert Street, Bethnal Green, London, on 24 February 1914, the second of four children of Barnet Langdon, an upholsterer, later an antiques dealer, and his wife, Bess, née Freedman (later Freeman). When he was seven the family moved to ...
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