Head of a Jewish Beggar: Studies.

KRAMER, JACOB.

London, 1915

Pencil and pastel. Signed and dated by artist lower right. Unexamined out of frame.

Exhibition label: Campbell & Franks Fine Arts, “Art from the East End” (London, May, 1976). An early notation on the back of frame reads: “Kramer did a number of heads for which elderly Jews were asked to sit. The artist’s sister remembers this one as the Leeds Jewish beggar who was frequently invited to join the Kramer family for a meal.” Jacob Kramer (1892-1962) was one of the most significant Anglo-Jewish artists of the 20th century and his work combined the avant-garde idiom of Cubism with Jewish subject matter, most famously in his 1920 masterpiece “The Day of Atonement” (Leeds City Art Gallery).