London-based artist Harold Kopel (1915–2009) was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. It appears that his father was Polish, born at Lodz, and was a jeweller by profession. His grandfather, also Polish, died in Leeds in 1919.
Harold Kopel moved from Newcastle to the capital, where he studied at University College London and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He went on to become a school art master and a senior lecturer in further education.
Kopel was a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and frequently took part in group exhibitions, including at the ROI, the New English Art Club, the Arcade Gallery in Temple Fortune, the Royal West of England Academy and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. He won a Silver Medal at the Paris Salon and the Cornelissen Prize at the 1990 ROI annual show. He also had a series of solo exhibitions, including at the Ben Uri Art Society in 1974, which specialises in Jewish artists.
Peter Stone, the art critic for the 'Jewish Chronicle' called him a 'gentle, quiet, soft painter with a good colour range'. His style in oil can be described as Abstract Impressionist, a style which developed in the 1940s and combined pure abstraction with an impression of reality. Kopel's work tried to ‘to convey his struggle to capture the mystery of nature’, seeking to ‘suggest, never dictate'.
