The Collection Martin Bloch

Graphic artist and painter born in Neisse, Silesia. He initially trained as an architect, and studied drawing in Berlin under Lovis Corinth, exhibiting at the Paul Cassirer Gallery. In 1923 he opened the Bloch-Kerschbaumer School in Berlin with Anton Kerschbaumer. He emigrated from Berlin (via Denmark) to Britain in 1934 to escape the Nazis and opened the School of Contemporary Painting in London with Roy de Maistre. He exhibited in the Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art at the New Burlington Galleries, London (1938) and held his first solo show at the Lefevre (1939). Interned in 1940, first in Huyton Camp, Liverpool, then Sefton camp, Isle of Man, he went on to become guest teacher at Camberwell School of Art. A joint exhibition with Josef Herman was held at the Ben Uri in 1949 and a memorial exhibition in 1963. An important retrospective was held at the Sainsbury Centre in 2007. His work can be found in public collections throughout the UK including London (Tate, V&A, British Museum, Ben Uri), Leeds, Bristol, Leicester, and Wales, as well as in collections in USA, Germany, France and Israel.