Name Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)
Born Bristol, England
Died Fampoux, France
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Date 1916
Object type painting
Medium black chalk, gouache and wash on paper
Materials and techniques chalk (medium) drawing (technique) paper (support)
Unframed 24 x 19.6 cm
Framed 47 x 40.7 cm
Acquisition Acquired in 2009 with the assistance of Art Fund, the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and anonymous donors
Accession number 2009-39
Display status not on display
Rosenberg was often unable to afford models and his oeuvre includes many self-portraits. The earliest are slight and delicate in the melancholic Romantic tradition of Benjamin Robert Haydon’s portrait sketches of the young Keats. Between 1912 and 1915, however, under the influence of the Slade, Rosenberg began to shed this persona in a series of leaner, bolder self-portraits which display a new bravura confidence and mark his transition to modernism. Unsentimental, yet poignant, this is Rosenberg’s final self-portrait and completes the series; it is also his final finished work as a painter. Drawn in gouache and chalk on crumpled, poor quality brown paper, possibly salvaged from a parcel sent from home, after Rosenberg had been sent to the Front in Northern France, its fragile state documents this important part of its history. The portrait appears to relate closely to a sketch made in a letter, entitled Self-portrait Sketch in Tin Helmet (c.1916, Imperial War Museum) of which Rosenberg joked to his family that it was ‘The New Fashion boiler hat – the trench hat’. These hats or steel helmets were issued in June 1916 while the troops were in billets prior to their first experience of trench warfare and most probably the gouache portrait was created at this time.
Rosenberg was killed while on patrol on 1st April 1918 at the age of 27. Despite publishing only two short collections of poetry during his lifetime, Rosenberg is now regarded as one of the finest War Poets of his generation.
artist | First World War | helmet | man | painting | poet | self-portrait | soldier | trenches | war
1975
Isaac Rosenberg: A Poet & Painter of the First World War
The National Book League
2008
Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg & His Circle
Ben Uri Gallery
2010
Apocalypse: unveiling a lost masterpiece by Marc Chagall and 50 selected masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection
Osborne Samuel
2013
Selected Highlights from over 200 works acquired during 2003-2013
Ben Uri Art Gallery
2014
Screaming Steel: Art, Poetry and Trauma 1914-18
Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle
2014
For King and Country
The Jewish Museum, London
2015
Out of Chaos – Ben Uri: 100 Years in London
Somerset House
2016
100 for 100: Ben Uri Past, Present & Future
Christie's South Kensington
2018
Acquisitions and Long-Term Loan Highlights Since 2001
Ben Uri Gallery
2019
Mark Gertler: Paintings from the Luke Gertler Bequest & Selected Important UK Collections
Ben Uri Gallery
2023
Art, Identity, Migration - Ben Uri at the London Art Fair
Business Design Centre
Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall, eds., 'Out of Chaos: Ben Uri; 100 Years in London' (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015), pp. 48-49; Selected Highlights from over 200 works acquired during 2003-2013 (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2013) (illus. included); Apocalypse: Unveiling a lost masterpiece by Marc Chagall (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2010); Sarah MacDougall and Rachel Dickson, 'Isaac Rosenberg the Painter: Part II - Shaken and Shivered' in 'Whitechapel at War: Isaac Rosenberg and his Circle (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2008), p. 59.
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