William Michael Rothenstein (19 March 1908 – 6 July 1993) was a British printmaker, painter and art teacher.

Early life

Born in Hampstead, London, on 19 March 1908, he was the youngest of four children born to the celebrated artist, Sir William Rothenstein and his wife Alice Knewstub.

Art

He was home schooled and studied art at Chelsea Polytechnic and later at the

Central School of Arts and Crafts The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and ...

. Affected by lingering depression, Rothenstein did little art making during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Despite this, he had his first one-man show at the Warren Gallery, London in 1931. During the late 1930s the artist's output was mainly Neo-Romantic landscapes and in 1940 he was commissioned to paint topographical watercolours of endangered sites in Sussex for the Recording Britain proanised by the

Pilgrim Trust The Pilgrim Trust is a national grant-making trust in the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is a registered charity under English law. It was founded in 1930 with a two million pound grant by Edward Harkness, an American philanthropist. ...

. In the early 1940s he moved to ''Ethel House'', in the north

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

village of

Great Bardfield Great Bardfield is a large village in the Braintree district of Essex, England. It is located approximately northwest of the town of Braintree, and approximately southeast of Saffron Walden. The village came to national attention during the ...

. The artist held his first (of many) one-man shows at the famous

Redfern Gallery The Redfern Gallery is an exhibition space in the West End of London specialising in contemporary British art. It was founded by Arthur Knyvett-Lee and Anthony Maxtone Graham in 1923 as an artists' cooperative on the top floor of Redfern H ...

, London in 1942. During this time he became increasingly fascinated by printmaking. At Great Bardfield there was a small resident art community that included

John Aldridge John William Aldridge (born 18 September 1958) is a former football player and manager. He was a prolific, record-breaking striker best known for his time with English club Liverpool in the late 1980s. His tally of 330 Football League goals is ...

Edward Bawden Edward Bawden, (10 March 1903 – 21 November 1989) was an English painter, illustrator and graphic artist, known for his prints, book covers, posters, and garden metalwork furniture. Bawden taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had be ...

and Kenneth Rowntree. In the early 1950s several more artists (including

George Chapman George Chapman (Hitchin, Hertfordshire, – London, 12 May 1634) was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Sh ...

Stanley Clifford-Smith Stanley Clifford-Smith (1906–1968) was an English Expressionist painter and textile designer who was active as an artist in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Early life The son of a photographer, Clifford-Smith was born in Reddish, Stockport, Chesh ...

, Audrey Cruddas and

Marianne Straub Marianne Straub OBE (23 September 1909 – 8 November 1994) was one of the leading commercial designers of textiles in Britain in the period from the 1940s to 1960s. She said her overriding aim was: "to design things which people could afford. ... ...

) moved to the village making it one of the most artistically creative spots in Britain. Rothenstein took an important role in organising the Great Bardfield Artists exhibitions during the 1950s. Thanks to his contacts in the art world (his older brother,

Sir John Rothenstein ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

, was the current head of the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

) these exhibitions became nationally known and attracted thousands of visitors. From the mid-1950s Rothenstein almost abandoned painting in preference to printmaking which included

linocut Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum s ...

as well as etchings. Like his fellow Bardfield artists his work was figurative but became near abstract in the 1960s. Although little known as a painter, Rothenstein became one of the most experimental printmakers in Britain during the 1950s and '60s. He authored several books on art subjects including ''Looking at Painting'' (1947) and ''Frontiers of Printmaking'' (1966). In 1965 he was the driving force behind the formation of Printmakers Council and served as its first Chairman. He taught art for many years at

Camberwell School of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgr ...

and Stoke-on-Trent College of Art, he also lectured extensively in the USA. He illustrated several books including the first UK edition of John Steinbeck's ''

Of Mice and Men ''Of Mice and Men'' is a novella written by John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it narrates the experiences of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job ...

'' (1937) and '' Acquainted with the Night: A Book of Dreams'' (1949) by Nancy Price. Rothenstein was elected an Associate of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

(ARA) in 1977 and a Royal Academician (RA) in 1984. Near the end of his life there was a retrospective of his work at the

Stoke-on-Trent City Museum and Art Gallery Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

(1989) and important shows followed at the Fry Art Gallery, Essex (1991 and 1993).

Legacy

His work is included in several public collections including the

(London),

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and ...

(London), and the Fry Art Gallery (

Saffron Walden Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15, ...

). In 1974, the one-man show 'Violence and the Studio Process' was held in

The Minories, Colchester The Minories is a Grade II listed building and gardens situated at the east end of High Street in Colchester, Essex, England, near Hollytrees, Gate House and Colchester Castle. It currently houses The Minories Galleries which are run by Colc ...

Personal life

In 1936 he married his first wife, the artist, Betty Fitzgerald, who was later known as

Duffy Ayers Betty Mona Desmond Ayers (née FitzGerald; 19 September 1915 – 10 November 2017), known as Duffy Ayers, was an English portrait painter. She was known for most of her life by the nickname "Duffy". Born in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, one o ...

, and the couple had two children. In 1956 he divorced Duffy and in 1958 married Diana Arnold-Forster. Not long after the 1958 Great Bardfield summer exhibition the couple moved to the nearby village of Stisted, Essex. She died in 2017.Rothenstein
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References

* Mel Gooding, ''Michael Rothenstein's Boxes'', London: Art Books International, 1992 * John Rothenstein, ''Time's Thievish Progress'', London: Cassell, 1970 * Martin Salisbury, 'The Artists', ''Artists at the Fry'', Cambridge: Ruskin Press, 2003 * Tessa Sidey, ''The Prints of Michael Rothenstein'', 1993 * Nicholas Usherwood, "Michael Rotherstein", Oxford: ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', 2004 * Pat Gilmour, "Michael Rothenstein's Prints", '' Print Quarterly'', vol. X, n°4, 1993

External links

*
Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rothenstein, Michael 1908 births 1993 deaths 20th-century English painters English male painters People from Hampstead English printmakers Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design Royal Academicians People from Great Bardfield English people of German-Jewish descent 20th-century English male artists