Feed on “wild honey” of Rosenberg’s lost youth

An exhibition celebrating the art of Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918), regarded as one of Britain’s finest WWI poetpainters, will be showing at the University of Leeds from 16 June to 25 July in the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery.

The exhibition, ‘Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his circle’, contains more than 50 paintings, drawings, manuscripts, photographs and ephemera by Rosenberg and some of his contemporaries.

Touring from the Ben Uri Gallery - London Jewish Museum of Art, this is the first exhibition in 15 years to focus on Rosenberg’s early career as an artist, rather than his famous poems such as Break of Day in the Trenches. It tells his story within the context of ‘The Whitechapel Boys’, a remarkable group of Jewish artists and writers based in London’s East End, many of whom made a significant impact on 20th century British modernism.

Rosenberg left behind him a small but fascinating body of artworks before being killed on the Western Front at the age of just 27, including Self-Portrait (1915) and the extraordinary Self-Portrait in a Steel Helmet (1916), completed in the trenches.

The University of Leeds was one of the first to organise an exhibition of Rosenberg’s art and poetry in 1959, under the steam of respected poet Jon Silkin, a Gregory Fellow in Poetry, and Maurice de Sausmarez, then head of the Department of Fine Art.

A complementary exhibition at the gallery will feature a selection of books and manuscripts from the Library’s Special Collections related to other wartime poets of that generation, including Siegfried Sassoon, Herbert Read and Robert Graves.

Brought up in poverty by Lithuanian immigrants, by the age of 14 Rosenberg was an apprentice engraver on Fleet Street. He studied at Slade School of Art from 1911-14 and formed lasting bonds with many of his peers, including the notable painters David Bomberg and Mark Gertler, and writers John Rodker and Joseph Leftwich.

Suffering from ill health, Rosenberg went to South Africa in 1914 to stay with his sister, where he enjoyed the freedom to write, paint and draw more seriously, as well as giving lectures.

However, when the First World War broke out he returned home to support his mother, and in desperate need of money, he eventually joined the British Army and was sent to the Western Front. Like so many other young men of his generation, Rosenberg was tragically killed on 1 April 1918, and his body was never recovered.

The exhibition ‘Whitechapel at War’ is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with contributions from leading scholars, including Dr Dominic Williams, a research fellow in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

Dr Williams compares Rosenberg’s experience to that of his friend John Rodker, a writer who became a conscientious objector to the war. “In both their works you can see a certain ambivalence towards the war, and a difficulty with identifying as being English,” he says. “For Rosenberg, he’s fighting in the trenches but his poems read as if he was somehow detached from the experience, and that may be to do with his social background.”

A free study day open to all will be held on 6 July, from 10am to 5pm (Michael Sadler Building), at which respected poet Jon Glover will talk about the 1959 Rosenberg exhibition. No bookings required, just turn up on the day.

“Rosenberg has a claim to being one of the greatest poets of WWI, and we hope this exhibition will show he is also a far more interesting artist than people have given him credit for,” says Dr Williams.

Photo 1: Self-Portrait in a Steel Helmet (1916), black chalk and gouache on brown wrapping paper, private lender.
Photo 2: Self-Portrait in a Red Tie (1914), oil on canvas, private lender.
Photo 3: Portrait of Sonia (c.1915), oil on canvas, private lender.