Josef Herman

Excerpts quoted from "The David Jones Journal Vol.VI Nos.1&2", 2007, pp.138-145.

A painter and later stage designer, who made Herman’s acquaintance in Glasgow, was the locally-born Tom MacDonald (1914-1985). He spent a year studying painting with Josef Herman and was an associate of both him and J.D.Fergusson, i.e. he was involved with the Unity Theatre for which he designed sets and directed plays. He took over Herman’s Glasgow studio (which had previously been Jankel Adler’s) when they left for London in 1943. Originally trained as a marine engineer, MacDonald was self-taught in art after having spent only a short period at the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1965 he also painted sets for Scottish Opera. His stage sets could be said to show Herman’s influence and were expressionist paintings of Glasgow’s working-class life. MacDonald, the painters Bet Low (his wife) and William Senior formed the Clyde Group whose intention was to promote a specifically political kind of art. MacDonald declared that it was Herman’s attitude to his subject, as much as his painting, that influenced them in this enterprise (D.MacMillan, 1990 p.371). But Herman’s influence was not all embracing on the young artist because his work, rather than representing social- realist painting in the manner of Herman, developed into a series of industrial and urban landscapes. In later years MacDonald used strong literary associations in his surrealist imagery. By then, collage was a frequent medium of his. The decorative or aesthetic as well as the subconscious or surrealist were the levels at which he made his statements. Often his paintings were deliberately ambiguous so that the viewer had to pause and think. For a number of years he was extra-mural lecturer in Art at Glasgow University and was appointed Governor of the Glasgow School of Art in 1977.

Catriona MacLeod (1913-1985) was a relative of the 28th Chief of the MacLeod Clan of Dunvegan Castle in the Isle of Sky, Dame Flora MacLeod of MacLeod. She was studying art in Glasgow when Josef Herman arrived there and was known as a talented draftsperson as well as a musician. By marrying Josef Herman she became closely associated with his style of painting. She learnt a great deal from her husband’s craft as a painter. However, each maintained a studio of their own in their home in Wales. Catriona was an experienced portraitist and painted many a local subject. Her still-life paintings show a Cezannean influence. She also painted local street scenes, which captured the spirit of the working class community. Catriona had a flamboyant personality and loved the outdoors, especially the sea. Despite Herman’s influence, Catriona MacLeod maintained her own style of painting throughout her life. There is a family cottage on the Isle of Sky, which holds her work. It used to be her studio where she continued to paint until her death.

Will Roberts, already a painter for some 20 years, became a close associate of Herman’s. His friendship with the latter marked him out as the artist’s closest disciple. In the first instance, Roberts had gone to see Herman with a portfolio of works, for Herman’s scrutiny. The latter was impressed and offered to act as tutor to him, as Will Roberts’ widow recalls. Although there is a visible relationship between the two painters’ work, there is an important difference. Kyffin Williams expressed the view (see introduction to the above book) that: “Whereas Josef Herman dedicated himself to the painting of mankind in a powerful manner that owes much to the influences of Constant Permeke, the work of Will Roberts is more specific and shows the individuality of human kind”. Perhaps the difference between the two painters’ styles has to be sought in their cultural backgrounds. In an interview with Phillip George for ARCADE, No.15, 1981, Roberts made an interesting comment. George observed that Roberts’ painting had been much influenced by the Berlin Expressionism of Jewish exiles, to which Roberts is said to have remarked: “…the irony is that they should have brought a style of painting which developed in the decadence which led to their persecution”. The reference to Jewish exiles had its origin in a remark by Roberts in a paper in Artists in Wales in the 1970s. He said that Martin Bloch, whom he knew well and alongside whom he had painted, also had much to impart. Heinz Koppel was another painter whom Roberts knew personally.

Cyril Ifold (1923-1986) from Glanrhyd, Ystradgynlais, was one of the miner-artists of that time. Like so many youngsters in the area, Ifold had to go and work in the pits at the age of 14; his father had died some 6 years earlier. He had always dreamt of becoming a painter, as his grandfather had been a successful portrait painter himself. So, at the age of 15 he went to have after-work lessons from Arthur Powson, a local artist of the old school, who used anatomy books for teaching purposes. Ifold was fascinated by Herman’s paintings, which “indicated to him the direction he should be going in his own work” as he and Herman shared an interest in both art and mining. Although Ifold never had any formal lesson from Herman, the latter’s influence has been considerable and can be seen even by the untrained eye. Yet, Ifold never imitated his role model; on the contrary he painted in a variety of styles which had interested him over the years. Throughout his life he occasionally painted portraits, imagined and real, of miners he knew and of local celebrities. Eventually Ifold turned to landscape painting which gave him the sensation of the sonorous colour and movement which he had been aiming at for a long time. His landscapes were not drawn from life but were composite images, which he had stored in his memory while walking the countryside.

Phyllis Lawson, born in 1927 in London and brought up there, studied art at Willesden Art College. At one of Herman’s exhibitions upon his return to London, she was introduced to him and asked if he would teach her. He explained that, as a rule, he did not take on students, but he was willing to look at two pieces of her work which were being exhibited at the time. One of them was called Men on Strike, which promised to be an interesting subject. They made enough of an impression on Herman for him to agree to take her on. Lawson knew that much of what she had learnt at college had to be ‘unlearnt’ (the first piece of advice she was given by her new tutor). She also knew that what she wanted to paint needed tutelage from a different quarter. Under Herman’s guidance, her natural desire to paint in the manner for which she was to become known, blossomed. For the first time in her career she acquired real freedom to express herself.

Mira Hamermesh, also entered Josef Herman’s ambit in the late 1950s. She is of Polish-Jewish stock and painted in the Herman style. Very little is known about this period of her career, because she gave up painting and concentrated instead on writing and the ‘lens-based’ media, i.e. photography and film-making. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s she made documentaries shown on Australian television and in Britain. Her films dealt with ‘Politics of the Divide’ such as the eternal clash between Arabs & Jews. BBC2 screened a moving and personal film made by her, dealing with the echoes and the ghosts of the past based on experiences in the Lodz ghetto in Poland.