Dimensions: support: 660 x 508 mm frame: 859 x 702 x 103 mm
Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: Gertler’s "Jewish Family" is such a tender, yet quietly unsettling piece, isn't it? It just *feels* like a memory, faded at the edges. Editor: The way Gertler renders their clothing speaks volumes. The rough texture of the paint suggests the weight and wear of the fabrics, hinting at their daily lives. Curator: Absolutely. It’s as if the weight of generations sits in their shoulders. The colors, though muted, seem to hum with stories untold. I feel a deep sense of empathy looking at them. Editor: I'm drawn to the muted palette, the economy of line. It reveals Gertler's sensitivity to the materiality of paint and its potential to evoke social realities. Curator: Perhaps, and also his sensitivity to the interior landscapes of family, of belonging. It feels like a whisper of something profound, doesn't it? Editor: Precisely, those whispers are embedded in the materiality and production of the work. It all carries history.
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Gertler often took his subjects from the Jewish community in Whitechapel where he had grown up. Here he presents an archetypal Jewish family using simplified forms and consciously archaic figure types, inspired by folk art and early Italian painting, sources which were influential among the Bloomsbury artists with whom he was associated at this time. Gertler’s mother regularly modelled for him, and his depictions of her reveal a complex interplay between different constructions of Jewish identity and artistic influences. This shows her as a peasant wearing a headscarf, although she had appeared in earlier portraits as a smartly-dressed Edwardian matron. Gallery label, October 2013
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