Artist of the Day, April 14, 2025: Mark Gertler, a British painter (#2258)

 Mark Gertler (1891 – 1939) was a British painter of figure subjects, portraits and still-life. His early life and his relationship with Dora Carrington were the inspiration for Gilbert Cannan's novel Mendel. The characters of Loerke in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love, and Gombauld in Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow were based on him.

Marks Gertler was born in Spitalfields, London, the youngest child of Polish Jewish immigrants, Louis Gertler and Kate "Golda" Berenbaum. He had four older siblings: Deborah, Harry, Sophie and Jacob "Jack".

From an early age, Gertler showed signs of a great talent for drawing. On leaving school in 1906, he enrolled in art classes at Regent Street Polytechnic. Due to his family's poverty, he was forced to drop out after a year, and in December 1907, he began working as an apprentice at Clayton & Bell, a stained glass company. He disliked his work there and rarely spoke of it in later years.[8] While there, he attended evening classes at the Polytechnic. In 1908, Gertler was placed third in a national art competition and it inspired him to apply for a scholarship from the Jewish Education Aid Society (JEAS) to resume his studies as an artist. The application was successful. Upon the advice of the prominent Jewish artist William Rothenstein, he enrolled at the Slade School of Art in London in 1908. During the four years he spent at the Slade, Gertler was a contemporary of Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth, C. R. W. Nevinson, Sir Stanley Spencer, Isaac Rosenberg, and Morris Goldstein, among others.

During his time at the Slade, Gertler met the painter Dora Carrington, whom he pursued relentlessly for many years. They had a brief sexual relationship during the years of the First World War. His obsessive love for Carrington is detailed in his published letters and in Sarah MacDougall's book Mark Gertler. It is also represented in the feature film Carrington (1995). His love for Carrington was unrequited, and she spent most of her life living with the homosexual author Lytton Strachey, with whom she was deeply in love. Carrington's unconventional relationship with Strachey, of whom Gertler was extremely jealous, and her eventual marriage to Ralph Partridge, destroyed her equally complex relationship with Gertler. He had been so distraught when he learned of Carrington's marriage that he tried to purchase a revolver and threatened to commit suicide.

Gertler's patron was Lady Ottoline Morrell, through whom he became acquainted with the Bloomsbury Group. She introduced him to Walter Sickert, the nominal leader of the Camden Town Group. Gertler was soon enjoying success as a painter of society portraits, but his temperamental manner and devotion to advancing his work according to his own vision led to increasing personal frustration and the alienation of potential sitters and buyers. As a result, he struggled frequently with poverty.

In 1914, the art collector Edward Marsh became Gertler's patron. The relationship between the two men proved a difficult one as Gertler felt that the system of patronage and the circle in which he moved were in direct conflict with his sense of self. In 1916, as World War I dragged on, Gertler ended the relationship due to his pacifism and conscientious objection (Marsh was secretary to Winston Churchill and patron to some of the war poets). Gertler's major painting Merry-Go-Round was created in the midst of the war years and was described by D. H. Lawrence as "the best modern picture I have seen".

In 1913, Gertler met the author and poet Gilbert Cannan, who later described him as "a small passionate man with green eyes". Cannan invited Gertler to stay with him and his wife Mary at their Mill House in Cholesbury, and the two men became friends. Gertler lived there on and off during 1915–1916, and he painted Gilbert Cannan at his Mill. The picture depicts Cannan outside the Mill with his two dogs. The black and white one, Luath, had been the inspiration for the dog Nana in the stage production of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. It was Cannan who was responsible for introducing Lady Ottoline Morrell to Gertler's paintings and encouraging her to support his work.

Gertler's later works developed a sometimes very harsh edge, influenced by his increasing ill health. In 1920, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis,[20] which forced him to enter a sanatorium on a number of occasions during the 1920s and 1930s. Two of Gertler's close friends, D. H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield, succumbed to the disease.

During the 1930s, he became a part-time teacher at the Westminster School of Art in order to supplement his intermittent income from painting. He also undertook commercial work, including a series of posters for the Empire Marketing Board. A still-life design by him of a fruit bowl was among the winning entries in the 1933 Famous Artists competition run by Cadbury's for a series of chocolate box designs and which were displayed at the Leicester Galleries in London.

Gertler gassed himself in his Highgate studio in 1939, having attempted suicide on at least one occasion in 1936. He was suffering at the time from increasing financial difficulties, his wife had recently left him, he had held a critically derided exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, he was still depressed over the death of his mother and Carrington's own suicide, and he was filled with fear over the imminent world war. He was buried at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.

Gertler's obituary in The Times described his death as "a serious loss to British art. Opinions of his work are likely to vary", it conceded, "but it is safe to say that a considered list of the half-dozen most important painters under fifty working in England would include him". Gertler's paintings are held in numerous public art collections, including in the Glasgow Museums

© 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Mark Gertler or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only

 Mark Gertler self-portrait

 Mark Gertler

Portrait of the Artists Family, A Playful Scene, 1910-11

Portrait of the artist's sister Sophie, circa 1911

Talmudic Discussion, circa 1911

The Artist’s Mother, circa 1911

Portrait of a girl, circa 1912

Sir George Howard Darwin, circa 1912

 The Apple Woman and Her Husband, circa 1912

Jewish Family, circa 1913

The Artist’s Brother Harry Holding an Apple, circa 1913

The Rabbi and His Grandchild, circa 1913

The doll, circa 1914

The Fruit Sorters, circa 1914

The Tea Pot, circa 1918

The Bokhara Coat, circa 1920

Head of a Basque Shepherdess, circa 1922

Queen of Sheba, circa 1922

 Sketch for ‘The Servant Girl’ circa 1923

The Servant Girl, circa 1923

Portrait of his mother, Kate Golda Berenbaum Gertler, circa 1924

The Basket of Fruit, circa 1925

Head of a Girl, circa 1929

Violin Case and Flowers, circa 1930

Portrait of Marjorie Gertler, circa 1933

Mandolinist, circa 1934

The Monastery, circa 1934

Fish, circa 1936