Illustration
צילום: סי די בנק
A retrospective on an ‘outsider’s’ art
London Jewish art gallery holding retrospective on work of Dora Holzhandler, Jewish artist whose work is influenced by both Jewish, Buddhist religions
A London Jewish art gallery is holding a retrospective on the work of Dora Holzhandler, the Parisian-born Jewish artist whose work is clearly influenced by both the Jewish and Buddhist religions.
The exhibition, Outside In or Inside Out, is being held at the Ben Uri Gallery at The London Jewish Museum of Art until August 6, and features selected works from the career of Holzhandler, which spans more than 50 years.
Born in Paris in 1928, the daughter of Jewish parents who were both Polish refugees, Holzhandler had an unsettled childhood. The collapse of her father’s business forced her to live with a Catholic family in Normandy for six years, before her family re-grouped and moved to London in 1934.
Her immediate family endured the Second World War in England, but much of her extended family perished at Auschwitz. Holzhandler briefly returned to Paris after the war but came back to live permanently in London in 1948.
In the same year, she enrolled at the Anglo-French Art Centre in London, where she met George Swinford, who would later become her husband and with whom she would go on to have three daughters.
Her exhibition highlights the life experiences, values and beliefs that have shaped her artistic progression over more than five decades. A critical artistic reassessment is also made in the wake of recent developments explored in exhibitions across Europe and the USA which have focused attention on Outsider Artists, such as the Los Angeles County Museum’s groundbreaking exhibition Parallel Visions (1992), The Museum of Modern Art’s High and Low; Modern Art and Popular Culture (1990) and the Whitechapel Gallery’s current major exhibition Inner Worlds Outside (2006).
External influence
Holzhandler’s work has been constantly influenced by external passions and beliefs, particularly her dual belief in both the Jewish and Buddhist religions. Her recognisably-stylised works are established through the use of repeated iconography, mystical and religious symbolism and she is influenced by the works of the late fellow Jewish artist Marc Chagall and Rousseau.
Her repetition of certain themes throughout her career has helped to establish a unique and striking work. It is these influential themes which have shaped this particular exhibition into five sections: Self Portraits, Mother and Child, Religious Imagery, Lovers and Landscapes. Each section explores the range of work produced over 50 years and investigates thematic development nourished by life experience and religious experimentation.
Aged 78 and still painting furiously, Holzhandler’s credentials as a naïve artist are long established. First recognised by fellow artist Victor Pasmore in 1947, she was ‘discovered’ professionally by Helen Lessore, the English painter and gallery director who hosted her first exhibition in 1954.
In practice, Holzhandler is a self taught artist, the principle criterion of ‘Outsider Art’. Nevertheless, this is a label that she does not easily accept, hence the exhibition title Outside In or Inside Out.
Reprinted with permission of the European Jewish Press
