NEN Gallery

David Bomberg, Racehorses, 1913
Black chalk and wash

David Bomberg was born in Birmingham in 1890, the fifth child in a Polish-Jewish immigrant family, but grew up in Whitechapel in the East End of London. He initially trained as a lithographer and studied art in evening classes, but a grant from the Jewish Education Art Society enabled him to study at the Slade School of Art in 1911. During this time, he painted a series of complex geometric works – most famously Mud Bath and In the Hold – combining the influence of Cubism and Futurism. (The Futurists were fascinated by the dynamism of modern forms of machinery, transport and communication. One of their main interests was capturing a sense of movement in their works.) However, during World War l, Bomberg served on the Western front. His experience of the destructive power of machines at war and the death of his brother in the trenches destroyed his faith in the machine age. After the war, his painting became rounded and more representational. He spent four years in Palestine concentrating on landscape painting and later lived in Spain, developing a more vigorous style with looser brushwork. He was an official war artist during the Second World War. After the war, he taught at the Borough Polytechnic, where his students included Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. Bomberg died in 1957.

Other works by David Bomberg in the Ben Uri Collection
At the Window 1919
The Broken Aqueduct, Wadi Kelt near Jericho 1954
Englishwoman 1920
Ghetto Theatre 1920
At Zion with the Church of the Dormition: moonlight 1923
The Studio 1919

Works by David Bomberg in the Tate collection
The Mud Bath 1914
In the Hold 1914
Bathing Scene c.1912-13
Ju-jitsu 1913
Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunnelling Company 1918-19
The Dancer 1914