Dora Holzhandler, Jewish Family in the Snow, 1993
Oil on board
Dora Holzhandler was born in Paris in 1928 of émigré Jewish/Polish parents. The collapse of her father’s business forced her into care with a Catholic family in Normandy for six years, before her family re-grouped and moved to London in 1934. Her family survived the Second World War in England, but much of her extended family perished at Auschwitz. Holzhandler returned to Paris in 1946 to study at the Sorbonne. In 1948, she settled permanently in England and became a student at the Anglo-French Art Centre in St John’s Wood, London, where she met and married George Swinford, a fellow student, and settled in Hampstead. She has exhibited in London, Bath, Paris and New York.
Dora’s work focuses on particular themes such as self-portraits, mother and child, religious imagery, lovers and landscapes. It is influenced by her belief in both Jewish and Buddhist religions and incorporates mystical and religious symbolism in a recognizably naïve style.
Other examples of works by Dora Hozhandler in the Ben Uri collection
Group of Jews: The Minyan, 2000
Oil on canvas
39.5 x 50 cm
My Grandfather in Auschwitz, 1962
Signed and dated
Oil on canvas
124.5 x 102 cm
Dora Holzhandler
Mother and Children in Holland Park
Oil on canvas
61 x 122 cm
Added:
16th Feb 2011
Subjects:
Art and Design, Citizenship, Design and Technology, Geography, History, PSHE, Religious Education
Key Stages:
Foundation, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3
Keywords:
Art, teaching packs, history, immigration, judaism, jewish, contemporary, london, international, sculpture, photography, painting, education, primary, secondary, drawing, movement
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