Josef Herman was born in 1911 into a poor Jewish family from Warsaw. Between 1930 -1932 he
studied at the Warsaw School of Art where he exhibited with a young group of left-wing artists called
The Phrygyan Bonnet. In 1938 anti-Semitism pogroms forced him to flee Warsaw for Brussels then
France and finally to the UK. He initially settled in Glasgow, where he lived from 1940 -1943 and
befriended Jankel Adler, another Polish refugee artist. Herman’s early work merged childhood
memories to present scenes of pre-War Warsaw, Jewish traditions and his family.
Upon moving to the small mining town of Ystradgynlais in South Wales in 1944, Herman’s style
shifted dramatically. He described how “Ystradgynlais changed my life and my work… Ystradgynlais
mattered”. The area provided a wealth of inspiration and gave Herman an understanding of the
hardships and warmth of community there – something which he so skilfully depicts in his drawings.
'From 1951, as I now see it, my drawing became more sculptural, the washes more controlled for that sculptural end, the
contrast stronger and the line lost all the remnants of “beauty”, a thing I did not regret. Beauty and I were in a long
lasting conflict but not until 1951 did I get the better of it.' Josef Herman
In Two Men with Shovels from 1956 the weight of the figure is palpable. Differing from earlier works the
body of the figures are both sculptural and dense. The dark washes of ink and determined black lines of
his silhouette give the figure a substance that is typical of Herman’s more mature works. The drawing
elegantly achieves Herman’s overarching aim of capturing the “dignity of the ordinary and the
everyday”.
Herman has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions. During his lifetime large
retrospectives of his works were held at Whitechapel Gallery, London (1956), Auckland City art
Gallery, New Zealand (1956), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1957), Camden Arts Centre,
London (1980), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1991), National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (1992) to
name but a few. His works are also held in many public collections such as The British Museum,
London, Manchester City Art Galleries, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Tate
Britain, London, Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal and National Gallery, Melbourne.