David Bomberg\’s Art Shows Geometric Shapes of Human form

DECEMBER 05, ON THIS DAY

The exercise of drawing from the life brings out the individuality of the (artist) in the man. When the door has been closed on completion of an academic rendering, no matter how rendered to the resemblance of the anatomic stress and strain, it is still only saying the things you already know… it is still a lifeless drawing in the light of modern art.

David Bomberg

English painter David Bomberg is well renowned for his early cubist pre-war portraits of people comprised of straightforward geometric shapes and limited colours. Portraits and natural landscapes were among his post-war works that moved closer to the figurative and expressionist styles. Although David Bomberg\’s artwork first included intricate geometric arrangements and few, but vivid colours, it gradually developed more representational tendencies and an affinity for expressionism. Their angular, sharply defined forms mixed with tremendous vitality were evident in both their paintings and drawings. His early works included intricate mathematical motifs that combined cubism and futurist influences.

David Bomberg was born on December 5, 1890 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. David started his painting training as an apprentice of the lithographer Paul Fischer in 1905. He was a student at the City and Guilds of London Art School during the same time frame. After three years of study with the Fischers, David began taking evening sessions at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where he studied lithography and book manufacturing. In order to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, David enrolled in Walter Sickert\’s evening course at the Westminster School in 1907 and spent three years there studying the shape and portrayal of \”gross material facts.\”

David Bomberg began his creative career in 1913 when he participated in his first group shows, one of which was the Camden Town Group\’s presentation in December at the Brighton City Art Galleries. Bomberg\’s first solo exhibition of his works took place in July 1914 at the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea, London. The exposition featured several of his earliest works, including The Mud Bath, and it earned the artist positive praise from critics as well as his first taste of popularity. He sold two of his drawings to John Quinn, a well-known collector from the United States. Bomberg\’s reduction of the human form to a series of geometric shapes may be a reflection of his obsession with the industrial age, which he shared with the Futurists and Vorticists. His picture \’The Mud Bath\’ also depicts the human body broken down to its most basic elements. The scene is based on steam baths in the vicinity of Bomberg\’s house in east London, which were frequented by the community\’s Jews and had spiritual significance. They may have served as a location for both spiritual and bodily purification.

One of the most prominent artists of the 20th century and a prolific painter, David Bomberg produced a large number of works. His exceptional talent was evident from the start of his artistic career. Young Bomberg thus won The Henry Tonks Prize for the portrait of his classmate Isaac Rosenberg while he was attending Slade School of Art. Bomberg did more than just create art; he also helped it advance. He participated in the founding of the London Group in 1914. He travelled extensively beginning in the 1920s, and at this period he started to paint primarily portraits and landscapes in a densely wrought, somewhat Expressionist figurative approach, moving away from abstraction. His subsequent career was largely devoted to teaching, and he had a significant impact on students like Auerbach and Kossoff. Bomberg died in London in 1957 after a fall in Ronda, and his reputation as a critic immediately improved. Bomberg\’s pensees were discovered and edited by one of his admirers, the painter Patrick Swift, who eventually published them as \”The Bomberg Papers\” in his \”X\” magazine.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bomberg
2. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/artist-teacher-and-provocateur-the-legacy-of-david-bomberg
3. http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Bomberg_David.html