Harry Weinberger
| Harry Weinberger | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 7, 1924 Berlin |
| Died | September 10, 2009 (aged 85) Leamington Spa |
| Occupation | Artist |
Harry Weinberger (1924–2009) was an artist based in England. He was 'a trenchant defender of traditional painting', who fought passionately against the dominant art school conventions of his day. Primarily a painter with a love of colour, Weinberger also taught art and illustrated books.
Harry Weinberger was born in Berlin on 7 April 1924, the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Weinberger's father moved the family from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Six years later on 20 July 1939, when Weinberger was 15, he and his sister Ina caught the last Kindertransport train to England, where he lived for the rest of his life.
As a boy growing up in Germany before the war, Weinberger witnessed several acts of political and racial violence, including the burning of the Reichstag and street brawls. Before the move to Czechoslovakia, Weinberger remembered watching boats of all kinds on the River Spree from the balcony of his parents' house at Bundesratufer 7 – a subject which he often returned to in his work, which for him symbolised escape.
Art was around him from an early age. The Weinbergers collected art, and a Russian artist, Grisha Oscheroff who lived with the family, taught Harry to paint at an early age. He never lost the obsession. He remembered seeing rich paintings in churches in Czechoslovakia, which fuelled his later passion for Russian icons.
Weinberger's cousin, the artist Heinz Koppel (1919–1980), who was four years older than Harry, also lived in Berlin, moved to Czechoslovakia in 1933 and came to Britain in 1938. Koppel's connections were to prove useful in Weinberger's early career. Weinberger's older brother and two of his uncles were also already resident in England by then.
On arriving in England, Weinberger initially boarded at schools in Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, then took a tool-making apprenticeship at a South Wales factory owned by one of his uncles, and studied engineering. During this time he also took private classes with the Welsh painter and print-maker, Ceri Richards (1903–1971).
Weinberger enlisted in the British army towards the end of World War Two, and served in Italy. After a falling out with a commanding officer over his Jewish identity he endured a brief spell in a military prison in Hamburg, but was duly honourably discharged at the end of 1946.
After the war Weinberger stated that he wanted to be able to paint, in peace and quiet.
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