Sarah MacDougall

This beautifully illustrated catalog accompanied and exhibition at the leading London gallery Piano Nobile, celebrating the achievements of Mart Gertler (1891-1939). It charts Gertler's career from an early British modernist at the close of the Edwardian era through his most radical period during the years of the First World War to the 'return to order' of the 1920s, when Gertler was recognized as a consummate painter with a highly individual vision. Gertler's biographer and cataloger Sarah MacDougall introduces us to celebrated and little-known painting and drawings from a number of private collections. Example of Gertler's experimental figurative work in this period include three of his four boxing studies show together here for the first time and two rarely exhibited drawings for his iconic anti-war painting, Merry-Go-Round (1916), both of which caused an 'outcry' when first exhibited.

This new monograph on the important and influential 20th-century British artist David Bomberg (1890-1957) accompanies a major new exhibition curated by the authors, due to open at Pallant House, Chichester (Oct 2017, touring to Laing Gallery, Newcastle and Ben Uri Gallery, London.) The monograph is a comprehensive yet succinct account, providing an informed and accessible overview of Bomberg's career and achievements, combining a biographical narrative with an analytical and interpretative approach. It discusses and illustrates Bomberg's five key periods and motifs including early, experimental modernism pre the First World War; War artist's commissions and immediate postwar works; major Jerusalem landscapes; portraiture, and particularly self-portraiture; and the flowering of his mature landscapes. The book is also notable for its inclusion of new material relating to Bomberg's Jewish background, and its sumptuous illustrations.

Marking the remarkable century of Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, from humble beginnings in London's East End in 1915 to a fully-fledged mainstream art museum, under its banner 'Art, Identity and Migration', this publication vividly illustrates rarely-seen masterworks from its collection by some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, including Soutine, Chagall, Auerbach, Bomberg, Kitaj and Kossoff. Further highlights include the 'Whitechapel Boys'; Les Peintres Juifs de L'Ecole de Paris, Official War artists from both conflicts; mid-century émigrés influencing the direction of the arts, and contemporary artists making ground-breaking work across new media. This unique collection, primarily of artists born into the Jewish faith, many shaping modern British, European and American art history, represents a distinct visual survey of artistic and social life in Britain and the cultural heritage of British Jewry. A range of texts provides a fascinating context for a collection born 'Out of Chaos'.