Morris Goldstein

1892 - 1970

BIOGRAPHY

“To be alive is a great benediction – to live through these turbulent times until peace reigns once more upon earth would be the greatest joy of all. My present hope and wish is to live through these times so that after the cessation of hostilities I could put my body and soul into my spiritual work.”

Morris Goldstein, 1917

Morris Goldstein was born in Pinczow, a small Polish town, halfway between Krakow and Warsaw. In 1900, at the height of the pogroms (a period of extreme religious persecution) his parents fled with him to the UK. They settled in Whitechapel in the East End of London.

Goldstein attended several schools, at Jamaica Street, Smith Street and The Arts and Crafts School in Stepney Green. It is here that he became good friends with Isaac Rosenberg, who would later become a celebrated WW1 poet. 

Goldstein spent much of his spare time at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and it is here that he and Rosenberg met Mark Gertler, David Bomberg, Jacob Kramer, John Rodker and Joseph Leftwich; this group of artists and writers would later become known as The Whitechapel Boys.

Goldstein attended London County Council School of Photo-Engraving and Lithography in Fleet Street, otherwise known as the Bolt Court Art School. In 1912, aged 20, he received a medal for 'best work' of the year.

It took him nearly three years to secure a grant from the Jewish Educational Aid Society (JEAS) to cover his fees so he could realise his dream of attending the Slade School of Art - the pre-eminent art institution of its time. As Richard Cork points out in the 'The Lost Whitechapel Boy' he joined "a truly exceptional cluster of students there. Apart from Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson, Ben Nicholson, Stanley Spencer and Edward Wadsworth, they included fellow East Enders like David Bomberg, Mark Gertler and Isaac Rosenberg who would make an outstanding contribution to British modernism in the early decades of the twentieth century."

The year after leaving the Slade in 1914, Goldstein participated in a landmark exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery alongside his contemporaries, Bomberg, Gertler, and Rosenberg. "Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements." Goldstein exhibited five works: Fear, Les Miserables, A Rabbi, Head of A Musician,  and A Study. Curators Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall point out in their essay The Whitechapel Boys "that the decision to highlight Jewish art within the context of British modernism can now be seen as groundbreaking."

As Goldstein was not naturalised he was exempt from fighting during World War I. Throughout that period he shared Mark Gertler’s studio and continued to exhibit work in the East End of London. In 1914, his paintings A Study, The Talmudist, and Sabbath Eve were shown at the New English Art Club.

In 1915, his paintings The Tempest and The Student were reproduced in Colour, a high-quality magazine covering contemporary art in Britain and overseas.  The New English Art Club also exhibited his painting The Sacrifice: Incident of the Present War in 1916.

 After the war, he returned to the Whitechapel Art Gallery with the Toynbee Art Club, with three works: My Mother, The Wanderers, A Study.  In 1923, in another major exhibition spotlighting Jewish artists the Whitechapel Art Gallery included three works by Goldstein in its show, "Works By Jewish Artists: A Spanish Girl, Portrait, and Clara.

In the years that followed, Goldstein was consumed with making ends meet, paying off his student loan, supporting his family, and enduring the impact of another war.

It wasn't until the 1950’s, five years after World War II, that Goldstein began to exhibit his work once again. Through his portraits of ordinary people, Goldstein became a chronicler of East End life. Most of his surviving work comes from this period.

In 1953, nearly 40 years after his first show, he returned to the Whitechapel Art Gallery as part of the East End Academy's annual show. He exhibited pastels, oil paintings and watercolours, including Dawn of Hope, Meditation, Wanderers and Conversation. He participated in this exhibition every year through to 1960.

Morris Goldstein died at his home in Stamford Hill, Hackney in 1971.

In 2014, Goldstein’s son Raymond Francis, together with his own children, began researching his father’s story, and uncovered extensive archival material and over 100 original works published for the first time in the book, “The Lost Whitechapel Boy.”