Ben Uri Collection

Abraham and Isaac

Artist information

Name Naomi Blake (1924-2018)

Other name Naomi Düm, Zisel Düm

Born Mukachevo, Soviet Union (Ukraine)

Died London, England

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Sculptor Naomi Blake (née Zisel Düm) was born into a Jewish family in Mukačevo, Czechoslovakia (now Mukacheve, Ukraine) on 11 March 1924, the youngest of ten children. She was sent with her family to Auschwitz concentration camp, where 24 out of the 32 members of her family perished; afterwards, she escaped during a death march from Brannau, eventually reaching Palestine. In 1948, while she was recuperating, she was given a piece of olivewood to sculpt to pass the time and this ignited her lifelong passion for sculpture. After the war, she lived in Milan and in Rome, before immigrating to England and settling in North London. She studied at the Hornsey School of Art in London (1955–60) and began exhibiting in 1962 with the Society of Portrait Sculptors; Woodstock Gallery (1972); Magdalene Street Gallery (1976); Embankment Gallery (1980); Norwich Cathedral (1987); the Royal West of England Academy (1989); and Chelmsford Cathedral Festival (1991). She participated in the Annual Summer Exhibition at Ben Uri Gallery in 1964 and in the Annual Open Exhibition in 1966 and her work was included in exhibitions including Characters from the Bible (1988) and Czech Artists from the Collection (1998). She also served on the Council of Ben Uri's Art Committee between 1975 and 1993 and was a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. In 2014 she held an exhibition at the Curwen Gallery, Windmill Street W1 and her daughter, Anita Peleg, published two books devoted to her mother's life and work, ‘Naomi Blake: Dedication in Sculpture’, a comprehensive catalogue of her sculptures, and ‘Glimmer of Hope: The Story of Naomi Blake’.

Naomi Blake died in London, England on 7 November 2018. Many of her sculptures are publicly sited at locations including Fitzroy Square and St Ethelberga's Church in London, the University of Leicester Scarman Centre and The Holocaust Centre, Nottinghamshire, and her work is also in the collection of Amnesty International and in a number of private collections including that of the late Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III. In 2021 the Royal British Society of Sculptors mounted an exhibition of her work on the sculpture terrace as part of the Society’s ‘Pioneering Women’ project.

Object Details

Date 1987

Object type sculpture

Medium resin and fibreglass

Materials and techniques fibreglass | resin (medium) sculpture (technique)

Dimensions 48 x 25 x 13 cm

Acquisition presented by the artist 1990

Accession number 1990-13

Display status not on display

Referencing the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, the artist explores themes of love, compassion, faith and sacrifice. Naomi Blake's granddaughter, Lucy Blake, has observed that much of her grandmother's work 'focuses on the expression of her experiences, and is principally optimistic. It stands determinedly to help keep alive the legacy of the six million slaughtered Jews, as well as promoting her vision for uniting different faiths, her confidence in humanity and her hope for the future'.

Literature

Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 117.

Abraham and Isaac by Naomi Blake

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Abraham and Isaac by Naomi Blake

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