Polish-British artist Josef Herman OBE RA (1911–2000)

A selection from our new collection of lithographs by Polish-British artist Josef Herman OBE RA (1911–2000). The prints were originally commisioned for a proposed Golden Cockerel edition of 'Poems of Catullus' in 1981 that was never published.

The Roman poet Catullus was viewed as a lyricist who poured forth his heart in verse and who led the 'Catullan revolution' by inventing the deeply felt poetry of personal lyric. Herman responds to this in his lithographs, meditating on some of his own abiding themes, of life, love and contemplation. Herman was an artist who studied deeply and was profoundly influenced by the work of other artists; here absorbing the influence of Matisse and Picasso.

Josef Herman has a fascinating biography, knowledge of which endlessly enriches his work. He was a Jewish socialist artist, the son of a cobbler in a poor district of Warsaw, Poland. In 1938 he fled the imminent Nazi threat, arriving in Glasgow via Belgium and France in 1940. Initially he painted nostalgic images from his childhood, until in 1942 he learned that his entire family had perished in the Holocaust. In 1944 he relocated to the Welsh mining village of Ystradgynlais in 1944, and found new inspiration in the miners and field labourers he encountered there. His reputation as an artist developed and in 1951 he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Festival of Britain, cementing his place in the British Arts. In 1981 he was awarded an OBE for services to British Art and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts a year later.