David Bomberg

David Bomberg

Bomberg studied under Walter Sickert at the Slade School. Inspired by the avant-garde Continental painting, particularly Cubism and Futurim, he exhibited with the Vorticists although he turned down Wyndham Lewis’s invitation to become a formal representative of the movement. During the First World War, Bomberg enlisted in the Royal Engineers. His harrowing experiences at the Front had a profound impact on his artistic practice. From the 1920s he travelled extensively and began moving away from abstraction to a heavily worked, somewhat Expressionist figurative style, painting mainly portraits and landscapes. Much of his later career was devoted to teaching, and he had a strong influence on pupils such as Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. At the time of his death his art was still overlooked but has since been met with much acclaim. A major exhibition was devoted to him at the Tate Gallery in 1988.