Josef Herman

Josef Herman (3 January 1911 – 19 February 2000) was a Polish-British painter who influenced contemporary art, particularly in the United Kingdom. He was part of a generation of central and eastern European Jewish refugee artists who emigrated to escape Nazi persecution. He saw himself as part of a tradition of European figurative artists who painted working people, a tradition that included Courbet, Millet and Van Gogh, Kathe Kollwitz and the Flemish Expressionist Constant Permeke. For eleven years he lived in Ystradgynlais, a mining community in South Wales.

Biography Herman was born in Warsaw into a Polish-Jewish family, on 3 January 1911. His father, David, was an illiterate shoemaker, his mother was called Sarah Malkah. He was the eldest of three children. His brother was called Shmiel, his sister was called Zelda. Josef grew up speaking Yiddish and he was profoundly influenced by Yiddish culture. From 1930 he attended the Warsaw School of Art, where he trained as a typesetter and graphic designer and then for two years worked briefly as a graphic artist. In 1938 at the age of 27, Herman left Poland for Brussels. He was introduced to many of the prominent artists then working in the city. After the beginning of World War II and the German invasion of Belgium, he escaped to France and then in 1940 to Great Britain.

In Britain, he first lived in Glasgow, where he met the sculptor Benno Schotz who became a lifelong friend and he was reunited with the Polish-Jewish artist Jankel Adler. Between 1940 and 1943 he contributed to a remarkable wartime artistic renaissance in the city. For the first four years he stayed in rooms at the Pen-y-bont Inn. He became part of the community, where he was fondly nicknamed "Joe Bach" (Little Joe).

When commissioned in 1951 to paint a mural for the Festival of Britain, Herman painted a group of coal miners. His work Miners (1951) showed six men resting above ground after their work. Herman said, "I think it is one of my key pictures and the most important one I did in Wales."

In 1955 Herman met Nini Ettlinger, whom he married in 1961. They had three children: David (born 1957), Sara (1962–1966) and Rebekah (born 1967). In 1962 the family moved to Little Cornard, near Sudbury, Suffolk. In 1971 the family moved briefly to Hundon also in West Suffolk. From 1972 Herman lived in the house in West London where he died in February 2000.

In the 1980 Birthday Honours Herman was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to British Art and was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 1990.

Legacy and honours 2004, the Josef Herman Foundation was established in Ystradgynlais, to honour the artist and his legacy, and encourage study of his work, as well as arts initiatives in South Wales.