21st April 2022

Mark Gertler, 32 Elder Street

Walking in…

In a quiet cobbled street, on an 18th century terraced house, a blue plaque commemorates Mark Gertler, British painter, who lived and worked here from 1912-1915. Gertler was born nearby in Gun Street in 1891, to Austro-Hungarian parents of Jewish heritage, in the Spitalfields neighbourhood, a historically diverse community. Gertler received a scholarship from the Jewish Education Aid Society, which enabled him to study at the Slade School, 1908-1912, becoming a friend and contemporary of the Bloomsbury Group. At the out break of World War I, Gertler was turned down for Military Service on account of his parentage. As a pacifist he said ‘What Luck!…Now I am free to go on with my work.’ His painting ‘The Merry-Go-Round’ 1916 (Tate Collection) has become one of the most potent images of the time. While working on it Gertler described it as ‘large and very unsaleable.’ D.H.Lawrence described it as ‘the best modern picture I have seen’…’a terrible and soul-tearing obscenity’.

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