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The Outsider Genius: David Bomberg’s Self-Portraits

The Outsider Genius: David Bomberg’s Self-Portraits

One of eleven children born to a family of Polish-Jewish immigrants, the young David Bomberg hoped that his artistic talent and Slade training would be a ticket out of poverty. In spite of his extraordinary abilities, his engagement with many of the artistic movements of the early 20th century, and the legacy he left to British art, this proved tragically not to be the case.

The art historian Richard Cork has dedicated years of his career to demonstrating why Bomberg deserves to be considered alongside Britain's greatest Modernist painters. In recent years, the artist's reputation is finally receiving due acclaim. In this talk, Cork examines the astonishing power of Bomberg's portraits to transport us into his inner world. In a sense, they constitute a biography of the artist which no critic in Bomberg's lifetime was willing to write.

Time Period:

20th century

Themes: