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===Legacy===
===Legacy===
[[File:Portarit of Nora Bernard Meninsky.jpg|thumb|''Portrait of Nora Meninsky'' charcoal, 1944]]

A Meninsky memorial exhibition was organised by the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]] in 1951 and a number of retrospective shows have been staged since including: Adams Gallery (1958);Crestine Gallery, Edinburgh (1965); Boydell Gallery, Liverpool (1966); Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester (1972); Belgrave Gallery London (1976); Annexe Gallery, Wimbledon (1977); Blond Fine Art London (1978); Worthing Art Gallery (1979); Museum of Modern Art Oxford (1981) and 'A Singular Vision' touring exhibition - Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Kingston upon Thames (2001) . Nora Meninsky bequeathed her collection of his work to the Contemporary Art Society to distribute to regional galleries in the UK and beyond. 69 works are in UK public collections including with the Arts Council, [[British Museum]], [[Imperial War Museum]], [[National Gallery of Ireland]], [[Tate Gallery]], [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], and regional galleries including Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield<ref name=bmYP>{{Art UK bio|retrieved=2 December 2013}}</ref>. In 1990 a biography ''Bernard Meninsky'' by John Russell Taylor was published by Redcliffe Press, Bristol. Nora Meninsky bequeathed collections of photographs, letters, documents, sketchbooks, exhibition catalogues and writings to the Tate archive - some of which are digitised. The Imperial War Museum hold letters relating to Meninsky's commissions as a war artist.
A Meninsky memorial exhibition was organised by the [[Arts Council of Great Britain|Arts Council]] in 1951 and a number of retrospective shows have been staged since including: Adams Gallery (1958);Crestine Gallery, Edinburgh (1965); Boydell Gallery, Liverpool (1966); Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester (1972); Belgrave Gallery London (1976); Annexe Gallery, Wimbledon (1977); Blond Fine Art London (1978); Worthing Art Gallery (1979); Museum of Modern Art Oxford (1981) and 'A Singular Vision' touring exhibition - Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Kingston upon Thames (2001) . Nora Meninsky bequeathed her collection of his work to the Contemporary Art Society to distribute to regional galleries in the UK and beyond. 69 works are in UK public collections including with the Arts Council, [[British Museum]], [[Imperial War Museum]], [[National Gallery of Ireland]], [[Tate Gallery]], [[Victoria and Albert Museum]], and regional galleries including Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield<ref name=bmYP>{{Art UK bio|retrieved=2 December 2013}}</ref>. In 1990 a biography ''Bernard Meninsky'' by John Russell Taylor was published by Redcliffe Press, Bristol. Nora Meninsky bequeathed collections of photographs, letters, documents, sketchbooks, exhibition catalogues and writings to the Tate archive - some of which are digitised. The Imperial War Museum hold letters relating to Meninsky's commissions as a war artist.


Revision as of 13:42, 21 October 2022

Bernard Meninsky
April 1926
Born
Bernard Menushkin

(1891-07-28)28 July 1891
Konotop, Tchernigov, Ukraine
Died12 February 1950(1950-02-12) (aged 58)
Education
Known forPainting

Bernard Meninsky (25 July 1891 – 12 February 1950) was a figurative artist, painter of figures and landscape in oils, watercolour and gouache, draughtsman and teacher.[1]

Biography

Early life and education

Meninsky was born in Konotop, Ukraine, where his father was a tailor and the family were Yiddish speaking Russian Jews. They moved to Liverpool when Bernard was six weeks old. The family name was apparently 'Menushkin'.[2][3]

Although Meninsky left school at the age of eleven, his talent for art led to the sale of a comic postcard design to Appelbaums.[4] Whilst working as an errand boy during the day, he attended free classes in art in the evenings and this enabled him to gain a place at the Liverpool School of Art. He studied there from 1906-1911, being financed by a succession of scholarships. He attended summer courses at the Royal College of Art London in August 1909 and August 1910. In 1911 Meninsky won a scholarship to study at the Académie Julian in Paris for three months.[5]

The Slade School and after

Black and white reproduction of 'Two Women and a Child' 1913

With the support of the Liverpool Jewish community and the Jewish Educational Aid Society (JEAS), Meninsky studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1912.[6] His contemporaries included David Bomberg, Isaac Rosenberg, Jacob Kramer plus William Roberts, who would become a life long friend and later a colleague at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Another important contact Meninsky made at this time was Walter Sickert who hosted 'At Homes' for Slade and ex-Slade in his Fitzroy Street studio.[7]

In the autumn of 1912 Roger Fry's Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition opened at the Grafton Galleries, London and was seen by the public as scandalous in its modernism. Meninsky's tutors at the Slade, Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer, also rejected the cubist work on display at the Grafton.[8] Whilst Bomberg and Roberts would go on to explore their own brand of 'English Cubism' in their immediate post-Slade years, Meninsky 'had been bowled over most completely by the greatness of Cezanne.'[9]

In 1913 Meninsky left the Slade to work as a 'pupil/teacher' for Edward Gordon Craig at his theatre school in Florence for a few months.[10] Returning to London, he began teaching life drawing at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.[11] The principal of the Central, F.V Burridge, had previously been head of the Liverpool School of Art, when Meninsky had been a prize winning student there. Teaching would be a passion of Meninsky's and his relationship with the Central School would be important to him throughout his life.[12]

World War I

In the summer of 1914 Meninsky's work was exhibited in the 'Jewish Section' of 'Twentieth-Century Art - a review of Modern Movements' at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London's East-end.[13] During World War I Meninsky exhibited with the New English Art Club, The Friday Club and, from November 1916, with The London Group - an organisation that he would be associated with throughout his career.[14][15][16]

Meninsky enlisted as a private in the Royal Fusiliers in January 1918 and married Margaret O'Connor the same year.[17][18]

The Arrival of the Leave Train 1918

Meninsky worked in a clerical capacity in the Royal Fusiliers and applied to be released from military service to be a war artist, under the scheme run by the British War Memorials Committee, BWMC. He was released for an initial four month period from May 1918.[19] Meninsky was discharged from military service, in August 1918, due to neurasthenia.[20] His son David was born in the summer of 1918.[21] Meninsky completed the large scale painting The Arrival of a Leave Train, Victoria Station, 1918 for the BWMC and at least five other related works before the end of the year. These works are now in the Imperial War Museum collection.

Mother and Child

The Red Hat - a portrait of Margaret Meninsky when she was pregnant with their second child, 1919

After the war ended Meninsky resumed teaching at the Central School and also accepted Walter Sickert’s invitation to take over his life class at the Westminster School of Art.[22] When it came to light that Meninsky was still on the BWMC ‘contract’ he was required to extend his involvement with the war art scheme for a further period.[23]

In the first few months of his son’s life Meninsky created a portfolio of 28 ‘mother and child’ drawings in a variety of media and the subject became a regular theme throughout his career. When Meninsky was elected to the London Group in 1919, he exhibited an oil painting on the theme at their April 1919exhibition.[24]

Margaret (‘Peggy’) Meninsky was pregnant again and their second son, Philip, was born in November 1919.[25] In December 1919, Meninsky had his highest profile exhibition when The Arrival of a Leave Train, Victoria Station, 1918 was shown at the National Gallery, London alongside works by other war artists under the BWMC scheme.[26]

The mother and child drawings had been picked up by the publisher John Lane and in 1920 the book launch of Mother and Child: Twenty Eight Drawings by Bernard Meninsky was promoted with a solo exhibition of the drawings at the Goupil Gallery, Regents Street, London.[27]

The end of a marriage

Still Life 1921

Shortly after the successful Goupil exhibition Margaret Meninsky walked out on her husband and children.[28] Meninsky acted swiftly to foster his children. David was placed with his sister in Liverpool and the baby, Philip, was placed with a retired nanny in Hertfordshire. This was initially a six month arrangement but was sufficiently satisfactory to be extended for the first 18 years of his life.[29] In the winter of 1922 Meninsky tried to put his personal troubles behind him by means of an extended caravan trip to the South of France with a friend, Stuart Edmonds. The stimulus of the Mediterranean light encouraged Meninsky to work more on landscape painting.[30] Upon returning to London Meninsky immersed himself in his teaching and took an active organisational role in the London Group that was now headed up by Roger Fry.[31] The 'Bloomsbury artists' Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Fry dominated the London Group shows of the twenties and to some extent Meninsky's work shares their 'English Post- Impressionist' aesthetic.[32] Throughout the twenties Meninsky worked in the familiar genres - still life, landscape, the nude - avoiding narrative and focusing on form.[33]

A new start

Meninsky visited his son Philip from time to time, sometimes with a female companions.[34] He saw David, in Liverpool, less frequently. Meninsky's biogragher, John Russell Taylor describes him '...as a man and so as a teacher, Meninsky was moody and unpredictable. Often he could be jovial and enthusiastic, but sometimes he could be cruelly dismimissive.'.[35] In 1923 Meninsky was elected to the New English Art Club and he exhibited regularly with them as well as with the London Group. Although his ex-student and laterly friend Morris Kestelman described his 'pervasive melancholy' Meninsky could also 'shine in company' and was a 'brilliant conversationalist'. He held his own with intellectual friends such as Helen Darbishire and Emanuel Miller.[36] In the mid twenties Meninsky arranged for his friend, William Roberts to share the life class with him at the Central School and in this capacity they worked together for the next twenty five years. Meninsky's financial circumstances were similar to the Robertses. Referring back to these times Sarah Roberts (nee Kramer) described the realities of being an artist's wife '....living in poverty, from hand to mouth. Living in a room or rooms, sharing a lavatory with a sink maybe on the landing... People today can't imagine just how poor we were in those days'.[37] The burden placed on artists such as Meninsky struggling to support children was immense. It was difficult to sell work in the post-war economic recession. Meninsky had pledged to repay the loan to the JEAS that now amounted to £80. He was, however, never in a position to repay that loan and his offer of paintings and drawings in compensation was rejected. The debt remained unpaid at his death.[38]

Ballerina pencil, ink and watercolour 1928

Fortunately Meninsky's exhibiting career was on the up. In 1926 he had two solo shows in London: drawings at the Mayor Gallery and watercolours at Lefevre Gallery and it was also the year he met a young dancer Nora Barczinsky (stage name Nora Edwards). Nora was currently in the chorus of the successful operetta Rose-Marie in London's West-end.[39] The couple's 18 month courtship, as evidenced through poems and love letters, was passionate and romantic.[40] Meninsky had a large show of oil paintings, watercolours and drawings at the Collectors Gallery in Manchester in 1927. In November of that year his first wife, now 'Margaret Rendall', died.[41] By the end of the year, Nora and Bernard Meninsky were married - they surprised their friends by marrying in a synagogue and they moved to a new flat in Abbey Road, St John's Wood. [42]

Difficulties

An exhibition of Meninsky's oil paintings at the St. George's Gallery in London in 1930 was well received.[43] That Meninsky and Nora were both 'strong willed and sometimes stubborn' contributed to a situation whereby the early years of their marriage were temptestuous.[44] His 'obsessive devotion' to his wife manifested itself in jealousies and accusations of infidelity.[45] Meninsky was also suffering from an extreme form of hypochondria, thinking, falsely, that he had throat cancer. Later he felt that his eye-sight was failing and that he would become blind. He was admitted to a private clinic for 'Functional Nervous Disorders' - but worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up the payments.[46] Later he was treated at the Maudsley Hospital for 'agoraphobia, claustrophobia and general depression' with electro-shock treatment and classic Freudian psychoanalysis.[47] Meninsky responded well to the treatment and by the mid-1930s he was able to return to teaching, had an exhibition of watercolours at Zwemmer's Gallery.

New opportunities and approaches

In 1935 an opportunity to design the sets and costume for a ballet, David with the newly formed 'Markova–Dolin Company arose.[48]Meninsky explained: 'the work of Picasso, Derain, and Matisse made me realise the unique opportunities which the theatre can give the painter to express himself on a vast scale in terms of colour or light and shade'[49] Meninsky's work of the 30s and 40s is marked by a change of direction. Now his female figures take on monumental dimensions that owe something to Picasso's neoclassical style.[50] For three of the winter months of 1935/6 Meninsky travelled to Torremolinos and Malaga[51] in Spain funded by a grant from the Artists' Benevolent Society.[52]

Meninsky's finances became a little more secure in the pre-war thirties. Edward Marsh, for many years Winston Churchill's secretary, bought some Meninsky drawings for himself and also on behalf of his friend Ivor Novello. Through Marsh, Meninsky met Churchill and in the years following the war he would occasionally drop into Meninsky's studio for lessons. Another important patron in the late 30s was Lord Glenconnor who greatly admired Meninsky's work. As well as befriending the Meninskys he offered practical financial help by setting up a £100 a year allowance for Meninsky.[53]

World War II and later

With the outbreak of war the London art schools closed and following stays with Nora's relatives in the winter of 1939/40, the Meninskys moved to Oxford where they had a small circle of friends including Helen Darbishire, the artist Paul Nash and his wife Margaret, and William and Sarah Roberts who had decamped to Oxford at the beginning of the war. Meninsky secured work at the Oxford City School of Art for himself and Roberts. In August 1942 Meninsky was approached by the War Artists' Advisory Committee to paint a watercolour connected to home-front activity for a fee of 30 gns and later negotiated a further portrait commission.[54]

In 1945 he returned to London and to teaching at the Central School. His work moved into what can be seen as a final phase that drew upon the visionary dream worlds of William Blake and Samuel Palmer and the pastoral poems of John Milton whose L'Allegro and Il Penseroso Meninsky was commissioned to illustrate by the publisher, Alan Wingate.[55]Taylor summarises thus:'Meninsky's rich-tone landscapes... were peopled with mothers and children, family groups travelling (several...inspired by the New Testament story of the 'Flight into Egypt'), pilgrims with staff in hand, shepherds without flocks and and heavy limbed women resting'[56]

Whilst there was much to celebrate at the end of the war - Meninsky's son Philip had survived capture by the Japanese being forced to work on the Burma-Thailand Railway and had been interned in POW camps im Malaya and Thailand where, undetected, he made drawings of camp life.[57] As he approached sixty Meninsky was seen as something of an elder statesman being commissioned by the Arts Council to curate an exhibition The Art of Drawing in 1948 and a profile article appeared in the first issue of Art News and Review. The magazine enthused: 'Using a palette which owes something to the Fauves, and through them to the Expressionists, he has created a world of classical dignity and plastic form.'[58] There was also a exhibition at Zwemmer's Gallery London. His mental health deteriorated in the last five years of his life and he died by suicide on 12 February 1950.[59]

Legacy

Portrait of Nora Meninsky charcoal, 1944

A Meninsky memorial exhibition was organised by the Arts Council in 1951 and a number of retrospective shows have been staged since including: Adams Gallery (1958);Crestine Gallery, Edinburgh (1965); Boydell Gallery, Liverpool (1966); Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester (1972); Belgrave Gallery London (1976); Annexe Gallery, Wimbledon (1977); Blond Fine Art London (1978); Worthing Art Gallery (1979); Museum of Modern Art Oxford (1981) and 'A Singular Vision' touring exhibition - Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, London and Kingston upon Thames (2001) . Nora Meninsky bequeathed her collection of his work to the Contemporary Art Society to distribute to regional galleries in the UK and beyond. 69 works are in UK public collections including with the Arts Council, British Museum, Imperial War Museum, National Gallery of Ireland, Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, and regional galleries including Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield[60]. In 1990 a biography Bernard Meninsky by John Russell Taylor was published by Redcliffe Press, Bristol. Nora Meninsky bequeathed collections of photographs, letters, documents, sketchbooks, exhibition catalogues and writings to the Tate archive - some of which are digitised. The Imperial War Museum hold letters relating to Meninsky's commissions as a war artist.

References

  1. ^ Special Collections, The University Library. "Bernard Meninsky". Leeds University. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
  2. ^ John Russell Taylor 'Bernard Meninsky, Redcliffe Press 1990, pages 9-10
  3. ^ In the UK census for 1901 and 1911 the family are called Meninsky and this is the name that Bernard's parents, Isaac and Annie used when applying for UK citizenship in June 1915 ref: Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations, 1870-1916 Ancestry.com. In the 1901 census Bernard is shortened to 'Barney' and he is listed as being born in Liverpool. In the 1911 census, Bernard completes the census form and puts his nationality as 'Russian'. This is consistent with his need to apply for UK nationalisation in 1918. His younger sisters are listed as being born in Liverpool.
  4. ^ John Russell Taylor, 1990, page 10
  5. ^ 'He later recalled crying in misery in Paris because he missed his family so much' John Russell Taylor, 1990, page 16
  6. ^ Monica Bohm-Duchen in A Singular Vision - drawings and paintings by Bernard Meninsky, published by University of Liverpool and the Contemporary Art Society, 2001, page 24.
  7. ^ Matthew Sturges 'Walter Sickert - a Life', Harper Perennial, 2005 page 481
  8. ^ Anna Gruetzner Robins 'Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914 London: 1997, pgs 64-107
  9. ^ John Russell Taylor, 1990, p.57
  10. ^ John Russsell Taylor, 1990. Page 31
  11. ^ Backemeyer et al.'Object Lessons: Central Saint Martins Art and Design Archive'. Lund Humphries, London, 1996
  12. ^ John Russell Taylor, 1990, p.33
  13. ^ Anna Gruetzner Robins 'Modern Art in Britain 1910-1914', Merrell Holberton, London 1982 Pages 139-144
  14. ^ "New English Art Club".
  15. ^ "Friday Club | Artist Biographies".
  16. ^ Sarah MacDougall | The Early Years of The London Group, 1913-28 in 'Uproar! The First 50 Years of the London Group 1913-63' edited by Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Stratton, Lund Humphreys, 2013
  17. ^ Ancestry.co.uk 'UK, British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-1920’
  18. ^ Marriage of Margaret O’Connor to Bernard Meninsky Jan-Feb-Mar 1918 Marylebone Registry Office ref. Ancestry.co.uk. 'England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005'
  19. ^ Imperial War Museum, London. Archive. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050000333
  20. ^ Ancestry.co.uk 'UK, British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-1920’. n.b. John Russell Taylor in 'Bernard Meninsky',1990, page 35 claims that Meninsky signed up in 1914 till mid 1918.
  21. ^ Ancestry.co.uk 'England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007'.
  22. ^ Matthew Sturgis Walter Sickert – A Life Harper Perennial, London, 2005, page 504
  23. ^ Imperial War Museum archive: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050000333
  24. ^ The Tenth Exhibition of the London Group 12 April-17 May 1919, The Mansard Gallery at Heals, London. This oil painting ‘Mother and Child’ is thought to be the work in the University of Leeds art collection and is reproduced in 'Uproar! The First 50 Years of the London Group 1913-63' edited by Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Stratton, Lund Humphreys, 2013, page 98
  25. ^ Ancestry.co.uk: ‘England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007’ shows Philip Meninsky to be registered in Fulham in last quarter of 1919. ‘England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2021’ clarifies his birth date as 1st November 1919.
  26. ^ National Gallery, Dec 1919 – Feb 1920
  27. ^ Westminster Gazette 9 April 1920
  28. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.40
  29. ^ Philip Meninsky, 'My Father' in 2001, University of Liverpool, page 15
  30. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, page 57.
  31. ^ Ancestry.co.uk 'London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965' records Meninsky sharing a studio at 18 Fitzroy Street, London in 1921
  32. ^ Sarah MacDoudall, 'Uproar! the Early years of The London Group, 1913-28' in 'Uproar! The First 50 years of the London Group 1913-63' edited by Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson' Lund Humphries,2013, pages 33-36
  33. ^ Fry's aesthetic is spelt out in 'Vision and Design', 1920, Chatto and Windus, London.
  34. ^ Philip Meninsky, 'My Father' in 2001, University of Liverpool, page 15
  35. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990 p.54
  36. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.60
  37. ^ Pauline Pauker 'Sarah: an anecdotal memoir of Sarah Roberts Wife, Model, Muse and Defender of William Roberts R.A.' published by the William Roberts Society, 2012, pages 10-11
  38. ^ Julia WeinerAnglo-Jewish Association Review (vol.23 1994) quoted in Monica Bohm-Duchen' A Singular Vision, 2001, pages 24-27
  39. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.60.
  40. ^ Tate Gallery Archive 8225 'Letters from BM to Nora Edwards / Nora Meninsky'
  41. ^ deceasedonline.com shows the burial record for 'Margaret Olive Rendall', Brookwood Cemetery burial date, 25 November 1927.
  42. ^ ancestry.co.uk. 'England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005'. Date last quarter of 1927 . The marriage date 21 December 1927 and their address is taken from J.R.Taylor, 1990 p. 62
  43. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990 p.74
  44. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.62
  45. ^ Bernard Meninsky Tate Archive 8225: Letters from BM to NM
  46. ^ Bernard Meninsky Tate Archive 8225: Letter dated 31st March 1932 from Cassell Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders, Swaylands House, Penshurst, Kent
  47. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.76.
  48. ^ J.R.Taylor 1990. p.77
  49. ^ Souvenir programme to David, 1935 quoted in J.R.Taylor 1990, p.77
  50. ^ Picasso's neoclassism of the 1920s was inspired by studying classical sculpture in Italy
  51. ^ Picasso's birthplace
  52. ^ Tate Gallery Archive 806/1/628-629 two letters from Bernard Meninsky to James Bolivar Manson of the Artists' Benevolent Society,1935 & 1936
  53. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.79
  54. ^ https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1050000982
  55. ^ published in 1946
  56. ^ J.R.Taylor 1990, pgs 82-83
  57. ^ https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80011786
  58. ^ Art News and Review, 12 February 1949
  59. ^ J.R.Taylor, 1990, p.85
  60. ^ 75 artworks by or after Bernard Meninsky at the Art UK site. Retrieved 2 December 2013.

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