Portrait of Joseph Leftwich
Clare Winsten (nee Birnberg), c. 1920

This fine Modernist portrait by Clare Winsten shows Joseph Leftwich (1892-1983), the Jewish critic and translator who coined the term ‘Whitechapel Boys’ to describe an influential group of Jewish writers and artists working in London’s East End during the period 1910-14. Winsten was born Clara Birnberg in Romania in 1894, but emigrated to England with her parents in 1902. She trained at the Slade School of Art and rose to prominence as part of the circle of Jewish Modernist painters that included Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and Isaac Rosenberg. Birnberg anglicised her name to Clare after her marriage to the writer and pacifist Stephen Winsten during the First World War. Clare Winsten’s portrait of Leftwich in the nascent Vorticist style has dual significance for the Ben Uri collection, being a likeness of the man who coined the term ‘Whitechapel Boys’ by the group’s only ‘Whitechapel Girl’.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Portrait of Joseph Leftwich, c. 1920
Date supported
2016
Medium and material
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
25.4 × 40.6cm
Grant
2750
Total cost
6000

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