Martin Bloch

Abstract

In June, this year, the Ben Uri Art Gallery, arranged a Memorial Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by the late Martin Bloch. “It is hoped that the exhibition will enable the public to renew its acquaintance with the work of this very distinguished painter.”—said the foreword to the catalogue. The exhibition was in many ways a fine tribute to the painter. It consisted of a number of hitherto little known pictures. The doyen of English art criticism, Eric Newton, rightly says in the introduction that “this exhibition sums him up as an artist whom the British can proudly claim as their own”. If I publish this short personal memoir, written some years ago (around 1954), it is because I think it may add to the portrait of the man.