Bernard Meninsky
1891-1950
Meninsky won a scholarship to Liverpool School of Art in 1906 and in 1911 he won an award which enabled him to study at Académie Julian in Paris for three months. On his return a further scholarship gave him the opportunity to study at the Slade School in London. He served in the 42nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in the First World War and in the last year of the War acted as an Official War Artist. In 1920 he succeeded Sickert at the Westminster School of Art teaching life drawing. He was a painter in oils and watercolours and a draughtsman of figure and landscape subjects. Meninksy was a prolific exhibitor with the London Group during the inter-war years and in 1922 the reviewer in the New Age noted: 'Bernard Meninsky stands rather apart as a painter. Without very much that is exclusively modern in his outlook, his preferences can yet be seen. The range of these is large, although it usually inclines to that which is definitely "painting", and in fact the whole of his work shows the love of the brush.' In 1930 he had a solo exhibition at St George's Gallery, London. From the early 1930s he taught at the Central School of Arts where he earned a distinguished reputation as a fine teacher. A retrospective memorial exhibition was arranged by Blond Fine Art in 1978.
Works Available
Portrait of Nerna, the artist's sister, 1923
Female Nude