Morris Kestelman RA, a framed limited edition lithograph numbered 2/30 in pencil and signed in the lower border. Approx sizes: Framed 41.5 cm x 47.5 cm or 16 ¼” x 18 ¾”; visible area 25 cm x 32 cm or 10” x 12 ½”. Originally purchased from the highly reputable Boundary Gallery, London and bears 2 of their labels one titling the work ‘Bare Back Rider’ and the other ‘Circus Artistes’ and dated 1997.

We also have a pen and ink drawing by this artist, Circus Rider, please see our other listings. We will combine postage, please ask for a price.

The publisher Noel Carrington commissioned Kestelman to produce a large series of pastel drawings for a book on the Bertram Mills Circus. The book was never published due to the outbreak of the Second World War (W.Rubinstein & Michael A. Jolles (Editors) (2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-0-230-30466-6).

Unexamined out of frame, but appears to be as originally printed. Contemporary frame and clean mount offered as used and of no commercial value. Unfortunately the glass has to be removed to avoid the risk of breakage and to comply with carriers’ requirements. All intact if collected by appointment. Replacement glass easily cut to size locally. Our photographs form part of the description.

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Artist Biography:

Morris Kestelman R.A. (5 October 1905 – 15 June 1998). Artist and teacher Morris Kestelman was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. He won a scholarship to the Central School of Art and Design in 1922, where his teachers included Bernard Meninsky. Meninsky introduced Kestelman, who became a life-long friend, to the London Group and Kestelman helped organise the Group's 1926 exhibition. After graduating from the Central School in 1925, Kestelman enrolled at the Royal College of Art where he studied until 1929, working as a stage designer for Sadler's Wells and the Old Vic.

During the Second World War Kestelman served as an air-raid warden. A drawing by him at an aircraft factory was purchased by the War Artists Advisory Committee and is now held by the Imperial War Museum (IWM). In 1943, when reports of the Holocaust first reached Britain, Kestelman created the painting Lama Sabachthami ('Why have you forsaken me?'), now part of the IWM collection. The painting was first exhibited at the 1943 For Liberty exhibition organised by the Artists' International Association in the shelter constructed on the bomb site of the John Lewis department store on Oxford Street in central London.

After teaching at Wimbledon School of Art, in 1951 Kestelman became Head of the Painting and Sculpture School at the Central School of Art and Design, a post he held until 1971. Kestelman married Dorothy Mary Creagh, a dress designer, in 1936 and the couple had one child, the actress Sara Kestelman. (c. Ben Uri Collection)

Please ask for an export price if this work is paid outside of and being shipped out of the U.K.