Clara Birnberg (1892 or 1894–1989) 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 Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

humanists.

Biography

Birnberg, whose father was born in Ternopil in modern Ukraine, moved to England with her family in 1902. Studying at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1910 and 1912 with

Isaac Rosenberg Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918) was an English poet and artist. His ''Poems from the Trenches'' are recognized as some of the most outstanding poetry written during the First World War. Early life Isaac Rosenberg was born ...

and David Bomberg, Birnberg became the only female member of their ' Whitechapel Boys' circle of artists and poets, and was the only female exhibitor at the 1914

post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

exhibition "Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements" at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in which this circle played a major part. Among her sculptures are one in the

Toynbee Hall Toynbee Hall is a charitable institution that works to address the causes and impacts of poverty in the East End of London and elsewhere. Established in 1884, it is based in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, and was the first university-affiliat ...

in Whitechapel, and one of Joan of Arc in the garden of George Bernard Shaw’s house in Ayot St Lawrence in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, 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 The Shaw Theatre is a theatre in Somers Town, in the London Borough of Camden. It is a part of the Pullman London St Pancras hotel, located off Euston Road. St Pancras library Before being refurbished in 1998, the Shaw Theatre originally op ...

and then (on its closure) to the Mayor of Camden. She also made drawings of Shaw, as well as of

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throug ...

, Benjamin Britten and Mahatma Gandhi. Their daughter Ruth Harrison was known as a campaigner for

animal welfare Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...

. Ruth married Dexter Harrison, a London architect.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birnberg, Clara 1890s births 1989 deaths 20th-century British sculptors 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent British women illustrators Converts to Quakerism English Jews English Quakers English women painters English women sculptors People from Ayot St Lawrence Whitechapel Boys Austro-Hungarian emigrants to the United Kingdom