London, The British Institute of Adult Education;
Woking, The Lightbox, The Ingram Collection: Colourful Lives of Artists, 30 April – 30 June 2013;
Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, The Human Face, 27 January – 12 March 2016;
London, The Sammy Ofer Centre, London Business School, London|Forward Facing, 26 September 2017 – 18 July 2018
Jacob Kramer hailed from what is now the Ukraine and was born into an artistic Jewish family. As a result of the accession of Tsar Nicholas II, Russian Jews were forced to leave the country and his family chose to emigrate to England where they lived in poverty. In 1902, aged 10 years old, he ran away from his home in Leeds, taking a number of jobs in places in the North of England including working at sea for six months. During this time he also took occasional art classes. His work shows his expressionist and spiritualist style as a painter, not only the physical form of his subjects. His sister Sarah Kramer, this painting’s subject, was married to William Roberts.
