Jacob Kramer, Ukrainian/British 1892-1962
Seated Figure

£3,950

Oil on canvas
69cm x 41cm (83cm x 58cm framed)
(A framed image of the work, will be provided shortly.)

Painter, draughtsman and printmaker, born in Klincy, Ukraine. His father and uncle were both artists. Kramer arrived in England in 1900, settling in a Jewish colony in Leeds. He remained in Leeds throughout his life. Initially studying at the Leeds School of Art, he went on to study at the Slade School in London. Here be befriended other leading artists of the day, including Augustus John, David Bomberg and William Roberts, and he was involved in the Vorticist movement led by Roberts and Wyndham Lewis, although was never really a follower of the style. Kramer was one of Britain’s greatest artists in the 1920s and 1930s, renowned for his sharp, angular paintings influenced by Expressionism, Cubism and Vorticism.

Jacob Epstein was a close friend of Kramer and in 1921 he modeled a bust of Kramer. Epstein described Kramer as “a model who seemed to be on fire. He was extraordinarily nervous. Energy seemed to leap into his hair as he sat, and sometimes he would be shaken by queer trembling.” The sculpture of him by Epstein is in Tate Gallery, which also holds Kramer’s work, as do Victoria & Albert Museum and British Museum. The largest body of his work, is in the Leeds Art Gallery collection.