The Many Sides of Bomberg: His Self Portraits

by Tania Harrington

Self portrayal was for Bomberg an extremely important outlet and a therapeutic tool. Like Rembrandt, whom Bomberg much admired and to whom he has often been compared,1 he used self portraiture as a means of self exploration and creative self expression. His self portraits are rarely self promotional, affected nor dramatic but relaxed, often fleeting depictions of his inner state at key times in his life. The most powerfulexamples were executed when he was struggling to make a livingand low in spirit.

Bomberg executed more than forty self portraits in his lifetime, many in oils - some in charcoal. This fact alone shows his commitment to the genre and makes him a significant self portraitist. Critical attention is usually focussed on his daring pre-War, Vorticist work – but some of his self portraits are equally as innovative.

That Bomberg had a natural talent for selfportrayal is evidenced in a beautifully sensitive and emotional self portrait undertaken when he was only nineteen – prior to his Slade days. Though there are signs of a ‘studiedness’, resulting no doubt from self examination in front of a mirror (the curvature of which is shown),

there is a sense he has captured the mind of a youth on the verge of maturity, with its conflicting emotions of idealism and anxiety. This same sensitivity is present in his superbly haunting drawing of friend and fellow Jew, Isaac Rosenberg executed four years later whilst at The Slade, for which he won its prestigious annual prize for drawing.2

1 Most notably by Richard Cork in his major biography, David Bomberg.

1

Head of a Poet, Isaac Rosenberg 1913

A second 1913 portrait, however, appears to be more of an exercise in technique than in self expression. The Slade, in spite of its Modernist credentials, taught a very rigorous andconventional methodology based on Renaissance practice. Bomberg had a thorough grounding in draughstmanship based on study of the figure which included study of the self. His Slade training coupled with his pre-Slade visits to London museums to copy old masters,3 gave him great skill in line and tone.

1913 (chalk on paper)

Bomberg’s adventure into avant-gardism was based on these traditional drawing practices. His cutting edge canvases were the result of numerous preliminary studies and sketches. He didn’t just ‘arrive’ at their succinctness out of the blue. 2 Isaac Rosenberg was also a student at The Slade but became better known as a poet. He was killed during the First World War at the tender age of 28. The portrait somehow seems to prophesy his tragic destiny.3 He visited and sketched at the National Galleries and the Victoria and Albert Museum (where he was recognized by John Singer Sargent who paved his way to The Slade)

2

Many of the preparatory drawings also show facial detail whichis removed or simplified in the final finished works.

Vision of Ezekiel 1912 (preliminary drawing on left)

3

In the Hold 1913 (preliminary drawing on left)

The goal of the machine age idiom in which Bomberg worked in these early years was to express the increasing de-humanisation of society. He was hardly going to emphasize the most intricate and individual aspect of the human being - the face. Even after the war, when Bomberg brought a more naturalistic nuance to his depictions of the figure, the face is usually turned away from view or cut off.

4

At the Window 1919 Bargee 1921

The traumas of the Great War changed the approach of many avant-gardists and turned them away from machine age abstraction to a more naturalistic path. Bomberg was one of those artists – like fellow Sladists, Paul Nash and CRW Nevinson, his experiences at the Front finally shocked him into a return to an appreciation of natural world. 4

A beautifully subtle and tender post-War self portrait (reminiscent of a Michelangelo), seems to express this return to natural observation. It feels as if Bomberg is re-discovering the human formand indeed himself, for the first time. Here we can see how Bombergcould express so much depth with such economical means, and using such a subtle drawing style. One would hardly believe it was by the same hand as his bold and often brutal, avant-garde work.

4 Bomberg enlisted in the Royal Engineers and was later transferred to the Sappers. During service he became so distressed that he deliberately shot himself in the foot as a protest.

5

1919 (pencil on paper)

The contradiction in Bomberg’s personality – the juxtapositionof the humble, sensitive and traditional with the bombastic and arrogant is evidenced in photographs from youthful days. Here Bomberg certainly made a statement about his unique imageand created a persona of difference. In the famous Slade picnic photo he is seen looking casual and unkempt in shirt sleeves and Homburg hat. His slumped posture testifies to his rebelliousness and rejection of the British Class system.

Slade Picnic c. 1912 (Bomberg in back row, third from left)

6

Article on Jews and Cubism, in Jewish World 1914 where he appears next to his very radical and cross cultural painting Ju-Jitsu, represented in colour to the right

In an article in Jewish World in 1914, he appeared quite the young radical, his unmistakably Hebrew attire declaring that Jews too can be ahead of the times. Here again we see the combination of traditional with cutting edge. His alert expression and eager pose show he is right there in the midst of the action, yet the title ‘Cubism’ betrays the remoteness of Jewish Culture as neither Ju-Jitsu nor Bomberg’s other famous fractured canvases could be accurately described as Cubist.5

5 The term was often broadly used to mean ‘Modernist in the French style’.

7

Nevinson: Self Portrait 1911 Wyndham Lewis: Self Portrait as Raphael 1923

Fellow Slade students and avant-gardists Christopher Nevinson and Percy Wyndham Lewis, (initiators of Vorticism, to which Bomberg was allied), show themselves in a similar defiant modein their painted self portraits which make statements about both their individual power and the machismo of their art. Butinterestingly Bomberg doesn’t use self portraiture as a finished statement or for self publicity but rather as a meansof intimate self revelation. His most famous works may be ‘grand statements’ but his self portraits are transient, underplayed, casual and intensely intimate.

Finding Himself

In a pugnacious (again profile) self portrait done later in 1919, he does though aim to make a statement of his potential

8

power. With a slightly arrogant and stubborn air, the hint of a snarl and an emphatic Jewish nose, we feel he is stamping his image onto the world in an attempt perhaps to dispel an impending sense of failure. But a second ‘companion’ image done round about the same time, expresses the uncertainty and hesitancy which lie beneath. There is also a casualness and sense of movement in both which gives them a sketch-like quality – we feel these states will pass – which indeed they do.

This combination of casualness and temporality without a loss of substance, is the hallmark of Bomberg’s self portraits and is what to my mind, makes them unique and interesting.

Self Portraits 1919

Self Portrait 1923 (oil on card)

9

A fantastically bold and simple image done on card about four years later shows him even more defiant (the odds against him are greater now) and fighting all the way down (literally, as he is squashed into the corner of the card). Again there is a sneer, and an accusation almost. Things weren’t working out – unlike during the up and coming pre-war years, Bomberg couldn’t find an audience and his work just wasn’t selling. The public’s view on art had become more conservative and Bomberg no longer had a niche. Numerous pen and ink drawings from the immediate post war period (examples below) show an existential ‘half world’ where estranged figures struggle to find a place in stage like settings – surely symbolic of Bomberg’s own displacement. He ended up by having to accept a commission negotiated for him by another artist,6 to Palestine in the same year, in order to keep himself afloat.

The Exit 1919 Players1919

Like most great self portraits of the Modern era, the age of angst and alienation, the suffering of the artist becomes the raison d’etre of their self portrayals. Whereas in an earlier age Rembrandt had depicted his failing powers and ageing face withan objectivity and certain distance, the torment of the 20th century is more subjective and deeply felt by its exponents – the pain becomes the gain in a way. Edward Munch, Frieda Kahloand more recently, Tracey Emin are excellent examples of this,

6 This was the Scottish engraver and war artist Muirhead Bone, who was a keen supporter of Bomberg.

10

their self portraits often overtly over-dramatization and selfpitying.

Munch: Self Portrait in Hell 1903 Frida Kahlo: The BrokenColumn 1944

Bomberg never seems to indulge in self pity nor self drama, even when despair eventually overtook him in the 1930s – the decade of his, as well as Britain’s, deepest depression.

Sickert: Off to the Pub 1911 Sickert: Self Portrait c.1896

The Thirties

11

The 1930s were Bomberg’s most prolific as far as self portraiture is concerned. In several examples, Bomberg almost starts to disappear. His murky form merges with an equally murky background rendering him almost indistinct. There is a sadness and anxiety about these images which one feels comes from a lack of identity and success. Many of them, in their anonymous feel and ‘grubbiness’, resemble works by Walter Sickert (one entitled ‘Man in the Hat’ is particularly Sickert-like). Sickert was once Bomberg’s teacher7 but his influence isnot often discernible – in these it most definitely is. A selfportrait by Sickert of about 1896 shares characteristics - a similar anxiety and sense of emptiness pervade, and there is afeel of casualness and intimacy. The palette is similarly understated. Yet Sickert holds on firmly to his sense of self through the intensity and penetration of his stare. In a worldly sense, Walter was much more sure of success than David.

In these portraits of the thirties, we feel Bomberg is losing his quintessential youthful robustness and sense of purpose. This is emphasized by the obscuration of the eyes – as though he can’t meet our gaze directly, though he looks our way, because somehow he’s not sure who he is or where he’s going.

7 This was at evening classes at the Westminster School in his pre-Slade days.

12

The Man in the Hat 1930 Self Portrait 1930 Self Portrait 1932

Having returned from his successful and inspiring Toledo trip to London in 1929, Bomberg was once more treading water. In 1930 he even tried to set himself up as a portrait painter in an attempt to re-establish himself and to earn an income. Thiswas a bad choice for him, particularly considering the newly discovered painterly freedom which he had found in Toledo (largely through his encounter with El Greco). The moneyed classes who tended to commission portraits, wanted a finished,polished look. Moreover, with the exception of his early drawing of Rosenberg, Bombergs’ depictions of others (the majority of family members), are rather shallow and lacking inconviction. In one of his more celebrated portraits of his wife Lilian entitled ‘The Red Hat’ (1931), he has resorted to using bright props to give life to what I feel is rather a stultified and caricatured face. 8

Kitty 1929 (His sister) The RedHat 1931 (Lilian)

Thankfully Bomberg had to abandon this venture and instead usehimself as a model. There is as a result a great output of

8 This portrait was however a favourite of Lilian’s.

13

fantastically varied and honest self portraits dating from this decade. Bomberg may have been cornered into self portraiture through lack of funds and models, but at least he was inspired by himself!

Some are quite formal (as those below) though the paintwork isbeautifully free and expressive. The example in the centre hasa Baroque feel to it – a deep shadowy space and a casualness (like a Vermeer where the figure is caught at a task in a private moment). The wearing of a hat is common in the early thirties self portraits - perhaps to try and gain an identity and establish a feeling of self importance. In all three he looks at the viewer as though we have trespassed – he distances himself and looks down with slight disdain. Is Bomberg trying to convince us he still has some standing?

1931 19311937 (oil on board)

As is to be expected with Bomerg’s contradictory nature, some portraits from the early thirties are quite the opposite and show him as an ordinary working man, and a tough one. There isno refinement here. In the picture in the middle (below) he has the look of an outcast, a down and out or convict even. He turns to us and with a haunted look, with the air of one accused. Later on in the decade his ‘working man’ persona re-emerges in a self portrait where he appears bereted and

14

surrounded by industrial- feeling smoke – in all three he smokes the pipe of the artist-outsider.

1932 1932 1937

The self portraits of the thirties show a high degree of variety. Like other periods in his life when he was in limbo, looking for direction and purpose, he chanelled his energies into experimentation and this results in some of his most interesting works, the pen and ink existential works and the so-called ‘imaginative compositions’ for example (see note 11)

In 1934 Bomberg settled in Ronda, Spain. During this first sejourn there he was quite fulfilled and tellingly as a resultthere are no self portraits from then until he returned to London in 1937 (an event forced upon him by the advent of the Spanish Civil War). This second spell of thirties portraits yielded some of the most powerful, as well as disturbing images.

15

‘The Man’ 1937 (one side) Other side of ‘The Man’ David 1937

The ‘Vintage Year’9

In a touchingly casual example simply entitled ‘The Man’ he shows himself as an ordinary bloke – he could be a run-of- themill business man at a meeting or conference. Turning away from the viewer as though he‘s preoccupied with other matters/disinterested in his audience (perhaps he is beyond caring about the public’s response) - there is a feeling, accentuated by the title, that he has given up attaching to

9 Term taken from an essay in David Bomberg, The Later Years by John Spurling (Whitechapel Art Gallery)

16

his strivings as an artist and settled into his humanity. But just when we thought we could relax with him . . .

we find a man in turmoil on the other side10 (painted in the same year). Looking in two directions, this Baconesque Janus is confused and in turmoil. He literally doesn’t know which way to turn. Rugged and raw, this image is one of Bomberg’s most disturbing and direct – Picasso with all his red-veined passion, didn’t come close to this in expressive power.

Comparable to Sickert’s sinister self portrait of 1896, where he appears also to be in movement and to have two sides (one looks out at the viewer, the other is hidden in the darkness, suggesting a secret side which he is unwilling to reveal). But Bomberg doesn’t conceal anything of himself, neither does he block us out – he presents himself with utter honesty and fearful truthfulness.

A very different portrait from the same year shows an equally disturbing image. On this occasion Bomberg emphasizes his ‘diseased’ self – the skeletal, haunted artist (he holds a paintbrush), looks hardly of this world. The prevailing yellowsuggests the jaundice he found he had contracted in 1930; the crimson red is suggestive of blood. The heavy grey outline lends a deathly air and the pronounced nose and dark features emphasize his Jewishness - and his difference. Entitled poignantly ‘David’ we are referred to his Old Testament namesake – in the eyes of Judaism a long suffering and tragic hero. Eyes are again obscured, though their emptiness looks directly at us.

10 Sometimes termed ‘verso’ but this implies ‘secondary’ so I prefer to use ‘other side’.

17

Self Portrait 1938 (charcoal) Rembrandt: Self Portrait as Zeuxis c.1662

A charcoal version from 1938 is even more sepulchral – the features frozen into an eternal-looking image reminiscent of abrass rubbing or death mask. Bomberg’s spirit has reached its blackest moment – and yet is there almost a faint smile of acceptance on his lips? The expression is not far removed fromRembrandt’s in his late Self Portrait as the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis grinning as he approaches the void.

The amazing contrast between these latter two images and The Man painted in the same year, show how strong were the contradictory sides to Bomberg’s psyche, and how variable his moods. And most importantly, how willing he was to explore them and share themwith the viewer – not so much his audience as his confidante.

During the forties Bomberg was pre-occupied with the ‘Bomb Store’ war commission, his series of depictions of London during bombing and after that, from 1944 with teaching. It is not until the fifties when he returned to Ronda, that self portraiture again became significant for him. And again, this was because he was in turmoil.

The Last Ronda Portraits

18

Bomberg had already executed many ‘imaginative compositions’.11

Now he was to execute ‘imaginative’ self portraits (though this was not his nomenclature, but his pupil, Dennis Creffield’s). They are based on figures other than himself (sometimes real models he invited in to his studio), but adapted to reflect the artist. Like many deep thinkers, Bomberg turned to religion towards the end of his life, and many of these late self portraits have a religious or mysticalconnotation.

The adoption of a persona allows him to more freely express himself, and in a way, to transcend his own personality. Just as Rembrandt had done 300 years before, when he represented himself as the Apostle Paul, and more recently his own former teacher, Walter Sickert (as the Old Testament prophet Abraham), he can thereby ‘universalize’ his condition.

11 A term used to describe his abstract works of the twenties where the subject matter is vague and set in an imaginary context.

19

Rembrandt: Self Portrait as the Apostle Paul 1661 Sickert: The Servant of Abraham 1929

Bomberg however, doesn’t tie himself down to a specific scriptural character but represents himself as a religious type eg. Franciscan, Jew and in the so-called ‘Last’ self portrait, martyr.

20

Self Portrait 1954 The Franciscan 1954 Hear O Israel 1955

Not only the eyes, but large parts of the face are obscured orobliterated, suggesting a death of the character, the individual personality. These images speak of Bomberg’s sense of failure at ‘becoming’ someone of importance. They are extremely resigned and full of a deep, mystical despair.

Unlike his previous stay in Ronda, his final years there were not happy ones. His plans for a School of Painting had come tonothing12, a sense of loneliness and failure haunted him and hewas plagued by ill health.

The painting Hear O Israel is like a plea for help. Here he submerges himself in his Judaistic roots, submerged in a great

12 His and Lilian’s planned School of Painting in Ronda collapsed in 1954 soon after it was launched.

21

cloak, as a priestly figure carrying a huge Torah scroll. Self absorbed, enclosed, separated - he is the archetypal Jewish adherent - a state so economically expressed by fellow Anglo-Jew, Jacob Kramer13 in his painting called straightforwardly The Jew . Bomberg’s title is far less understated. It comes from a Hebrew prayer which Bomberg wouldhave chanted as a youngster. A plea echoing through his hopeful childhood and continuing on now into his decline, as if this mournful prayer is all he has left. In a way this is the saddest of the late portraits with the sense of hopelessness barely redeemed by the fragile strip of white light flashing up from below.

Jacob Kramer:The Jew 1916

In a self portrait known as the ‘Last’,14 Bomberg does an about turn and represents himself in a Christ-like guise . Not that the artist was ever ‘anti Christian’ and seems to have had a respect for Roman Catholic processions and ceremonies. He had himself smuggled into an Aremenian Church in Palstine to paintThe Washing of the Feet, and depicted the Procession of the Virign de la Paz in Ronda in 1935. This spectacle was not altogether new to him- as a child growing up in the East End of London, he

13 Like Bomberg Kramer received a grant from the Jewish Educational Aid Society and won a place at The Slade.14 Bomberg’s wife Lilian specified to Richard Cork, that the 1956 Pallant House Gallery Self Portrait was his last.

22

sometimes tagged onto to Catholic street processions with his siblings.

‘Last’ Self Portrait 1956 The Washing of the Feet c. 1925

Interestingly The Washing of the Feet shares the same warm pinky hues, dreamy blue and potent black. In both paintings the latter suggests contrition and the warm colours redemption. There is also a sense of humility and a desire for forgivenessin both. (In The Washing of the Feet this is overt in the symbolism of the ritual). The artist (or should I say ‘prophet’), is poised before us in a resigned pose, almost as if he were offering himself for judgment – a sort of ecco homo. His brushes lay in his lap as though their function is mystical rather than practical. This together with the mutilation of the eyes, suggesting his vision is not dependent on physical sight, underlines Bomberg’s sense that his was a spiritual vocation. The strongly Jewish features and robe (the usual white coat he wore for painting becomes a loose gown), together with the ecco homo pose, make us feel he is drawing a parallel between himself and Christ, much like Albrecht Durer did at the outset of the 16th century in his famous self portrait of 1500. But whereas there is a sense of arrogant self confidence in Durer, with Bomberg this doesn’t come across – he seems to be asking for pity more than admiration.

23

Durer: Self Portrait 1500 Tajo and Rocks, Ronda 1956

Bomberg was 66 years old when he feebly painted this hugely symbolic self portrait. Weakened considerably by anaemia as well as age, these factors explain the very sketchy paintwork.But like Tajo and Rocks of the same year, this only adds to the expressiveness and visionary feel. Like Rembrandt’s last self portrait, we sense a disappearing into another, less physical realm as if both artists were saying goodbye.

The pre-eminent writer on Bomberg, Richard Cork summed up its character well:

“the frailty of the image testifies to the fact that he has barely managed to paint it at all, and therein lies its particular power ... Wavering on the edge of extinction, and yet stubborn enough to find a consoling resilience in the

24

near-disembodied image he has created here, Bomberg could hardly have brought his career as a painter to a more memorable close”.15

The fact that Bomberg executed such a powerful and symbolic statement of his sense of self whilst so frail, suggests that his sense of identity towards the end of his life was in some ways very strong - but in the spiritual not worldly sense. Again like Rembrandt, he leaves us with an image of one who, in the eyes of society has failed but whose experiences as an artist are extremely deep and will therefore endure.

Rembrandt: Last Self Portrait 1669

Bomberg the Artist

There are only two self portraits showing Bomberg at work (oneillustrated on page 8, the other below). It isn’t unusual for an artists to portray themselves outside their trade . What isunusual is the lack of formality and sense of casualness in both these images.

15 In David Bomberg, Yale University Press pp.313-314

25

1937 Atwork in Jerusalem 1925

Unlike better known Modern artists in the Expressionist tradition such as Van Gogh, Munch or Freud, he doesn’t turn the tools of his trade into ‘trademarks’. The act of painting is for him a private and personal occupation and not a dramatic or prepossessing one. Photographs showing him at workreveal the same quiet absorption and absence of egotism. Perhaps this is why success finally eluded him!

26

Van Gogh: Self Portrait Munch: Self Portrait Lucien Freud: Painter

at Easel 1888 with Brushes 1904 Working, Reflection 1993

Afterword: The Enigma of a late Self Portrait

There remains some uncertainty about the dating of a self portrait which is in the recently established Borough Road Gallery (the Sarah Rose Collection). In an essay published by

27

the gallery itself and written by Alan Read, it is dated 1956 (the same year as the so-called ‘last’ Self Portrait). In an article published in the Jewish Chronicle in June 2012 about the opening of the Borough Road Gallery, it is dated 1957, and thesame dating is give on the BBC Your Paintings web site.

1956/7? 1956

Self Portrait at Borough Road Gallery Self Portrait at PallantHouse Gallery

There is no doubt that this is a late self portrait, but does it predate the so-called ‘last’? There are similarities to the Pallant House work, but also significant differences. Firstly it is not in keeping with the late group of ‘imaginative self portraits’ as Bomberg doesn’t present himself in the guise of a religious figure but very much as a man. He has a solidity and earthy presence which they lack. Though there is a similar mysterious light, it seems to emanate from an external physical source ( Alan Read statesin his essay that it ‘ seems to be artificial light from directly overhead’), rather than a divine one. There is a similar obliteration of the eyes (though not as violent) which are in darkness, but the pose is quite different. Rather than resigned and passive it is forceful and robust. There is a great eeriness about the picture brought about not only by the strange lighting but the feeling that he is looking death in the face – but without the need for help from God. A courage and feeling of confidence is evident which is very, very different from the ‘imaginative self portraits’.

28

Does this work demonstrate yet again Bomberg’s ‘dual’ personality? At once humble and vulnerable, robust and independent? Let’s hope more clarity over the dating of this self portrait can be found.

Bibliography

Richard Cork: David Bomberg; Yale University Press 1987

Laura Cumming: A Face to the World; Harper Press 2009

David Bomberg: The Later Years by John Spurling; Whitechapel Art Gallery Catalogue 1979

Alan Read: On David Bomberg’s Self Portrait 1956, Borough RoadGallery 2014?

29

30