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Mark Gertler

1891-1939

Born in London of a family of Jewish immigrants from Poland, he grew up in the impoverished conditions which prevailed among the Jewish immigrant community of Whitechapel. He studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic and afterwards, with the help of Sir John Rothenstein and the Jewish Educational Society, at the Slade School of Art, where his outstanding talent was early recognized. There he became a friend of Nevinson, Wadsworth and Adrian Allinson. In 1911 his painting The Apple Woman was accepted for exhibition by the New English Art Club and he was elected a member of the Club in 1912. In 1915 he was elected a member of The London Group and through his friend John Currie was introduced to the collector Edward Marsh who became a friend and patron for some years. Gilbert Cannan, a member of Marsh's circle, became a friend and made him the hero of his popular novel Mendel. While staying with Cannan at Cholesbury he got to know Katherine Mansfield and Middleton Murry and Frieda and D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence made him the model for the sculptor Loerke in his novel Women in Love. In 1917-18 he attracted the attention of Roger Fry, who encouraged him and helped him to participate in exhibitions he organized. In a letter to Vanessa Bell Fry said: 'Except for Gertler we are fearfully tasteful.' After showing symptoms of depression and discouragement Gertler collapsed from tuberculosis in 1920, the year of his first one-man show at the Goupil Gallery. He continued a constant battle against financial difficulties, although from 1921 to 1932 he received a small income first from the Goupil Gallery and then from the Leicester Galleries. He was obsessed by family troubles, illness and recurrent attacks of depression and discouragement. He committed suicide in 1939. After his death there were a number of exhibitons of his work, including a large Memorial Exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1939. It was not until the 1960s that the outstanding quality of his achievement began to be generally recognized among museum directors and collectors.