By Jacob Kramer
Located in Hagley, England
Jacob Kramer is a Jewish artist who migrated with his family to Leeds to escape the Russian pogroms when Kramer was only eight. This portrait oil painting was painted when Kramer was thirty, in 1922, shortly after his return to Leeds from living in London. It is a head and shoulders portrait of a gentleman with dark hair, gazing to his right, his identity unknown. The light from the left hand side of the painting strongly illuminates the left side of the gentleman's face, making it stand out from the darker background and casts strong shadow on the right. The brushwork is bold and confident in its execution. This is an excellent example of Kramer's Post Impresionist work in the early 1920's when at his artistic peak.
Signed and dated 1922 lower right.
Provenance. Yorkshire estate.
Condition. Oil on canvas, 20 inches by 16 inches and in good condition.
Frame. Housed in an ebonised frame, 23 inches by 19 inches, in good condition.
Jacob Kramer (1892-1962) was born in the small town of Klintsy in 1892, then part of the Russian Empire, into an artistic middle class Jewish family. His father, Max, was a painter who had studied at the St Petersburg Fine Art Academy under Ilya Repin, and had become a court painter to Baron Ginsburg. Kramer's mother, Cecilia, was also artistic being a trained singer who was well known for touring a regional network of theatres established by her father, at which she performed traditional Slavic and Hebrew folk songs. Following the accession of Tsar Nicholas II in 1894 a new virulent anti-semitic policy was introduced to force Russian Jews...
Category
Post-Impressionist 1920s Art