Clara Birnberg

Clara Birnberg (1892[1][2][3] or 1894–1989)[4] was a British artist, illustrator, portraitist and sculptor. After her marriage to the artist Stephen Weinstein, they changed their surname to Winsten (with her becoming Clare Winsten) and both became Quaker humanists.[5]

Clare Winsten
Clare Winsten, 1916 portrait by Isaac Rosenberg
Born
Clara Birnberg

1894 (1894)
Died1989 (aged 94–95)
NationalityBritish
EducationSlade School of Fine Art
Known forPainting
Spouse(s)Stephen Weinstein

Biography

Birnberg, whose father was born in Ternopil in modern Ukraine[2], moved to England with her family in 1902.[1] Studying at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1910 and 1912 with Isaac Rosenberg and David Bomberg, Birnberg became the only female member of their 'Whitechapel Boys' circle of artists and poets,[6] and was the only female exhibitor at the 1914 post-Impressionist exhibition "Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements" at the Whitechapel Art Gallery[7] in which this circle played a major part.

Among her sculptures are one in the Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, and one of Joan of Arc in the garden of George Bernard Shaw’s house in Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, where Shaw and the Winstens were neighbours (Stephen already had connections with Shaw). Clare illustrated Shaw's Buoyant Billions: A Comedy of No Manners in Prose (1949), and the posthumously published My Dear Dorothea: A practical system of Moral education for females Embodied in a letter to a young person Of that sex (1956), written when he was 21. In addition to painting Shaw a number of times, Birnberg also produced a 1946 bronze sculpture of him, which passed on his death to the Shaw Theatre and then (on its closure) to the Mayor of Camden. She also made drawings of Shaw, as well as of Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten and Mahatma Gandhi.

Their daughter Ruth Harrison was known as a campaigner for animal rights. Ruth married Dexter Harrison, a London architect.

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References
  1. Kitching, Paula (2019). Britain's Jews in the First World War. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing Ltd.
  2. "UK, Naturalisation Certificates and Declarations, 1870-1916 for Clara Birnberg". Ancestry.com. 18 November 1911. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
  3. "Clara Birnberg in the 1911 England Census". Ancestry.com. 2 April 1911. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
  4. "Clare Winsten (Clara Birnberg) (1894-1989)". National Portrait Gallery, London. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  5. "A newly-discovered portrait of Joseph Leftwich by 'Whitechapel Girl' Clare Winsten, c.1919 - Ben Uri Gallery & Museum". Ben Uri Gallery & Museum. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
  6. "Clare Winsten [née Clara Birnberg]". Ben Uri Gallery & Museum on Facebook. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  7. "Clara Birnberg". Jewish Museum London. Retrieved 29 September 2019.
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