Ghisha Koenig (8 December 1921 - 15 October 1993) was a British sculptor whose work focused on the work place, especially factories as a hub of human activity.

Life

Ghisha Koenig was born in London on 8 December 1921, the daughter of Leo Koenig (1898-1970), art critic and writer, and his wife, Fanny Hildebrand (fl. 1900-1940), formerly a Yiddish actress. In 1950, she married Dr. Emanuel (Manny) Tuckman, and they had one daughter, Sarah.The Independent

accessdate: 28/08/2014 She died on 15 October 1993.

Work

Koenig studied at the

Hornsey School of Art Hornsey College of Art (a.k.a. Hornsey School of Art) was a college in Crouch End in the London Borough of Haringey, England. The HCA was "an iconic British art institution, renowned for its experimental and progressive approach to art and design ...

, the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

with

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

, and the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

. During World War II she was a member of the

Auxiliary Territorial Service The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 Februa ...

. left, The Machine Minders by Ghisha Koenig Between 1955 and 1956 she spent time observing and sketching people at work at an ink factory in Kent. The resulting sculpture was created in clay and made in cast concrete. It was called "The Machine Minders" and is at

Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...

. Her first solo exhibition was at the

Grosvenor Gallery The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé. The gallery proved crucial to the Aesthetic Movement because it provided ...

in London in 1966. She also had a solo exhibition at the

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

in London in 1986. This exhibition included works created from 1968 to 1986 from three series, ''The Glassworks'', ''The Tentmakers'' and ''The Plate and Coil Shop''. Factories she visited or worked at included

J & E Hall J & E Hall is an English manufacturer of refrigeration equipment (today part of the Daikin group). It was originally established as an iron works in Dartford, Kent in 1785, with products including papermaking machines, steam engines and gun carria ...

, Dartford (APV Products Ltd) which made escalators and salination systems, the Plate and Coil Shop, and the Fettling Shop. Many of her sculptures are done in bronze or terracotta bas-reliefs. Her work is in the permanent collection 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 ...

, the Museum of Labour History in Manchester, Middleheim Museum in Belgium, the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield, the City Art Gallery in Stoke-on Trent, Homerton College in Cambridge, and the City Art Gallery in Manchester. Public commissions include the Ministry of Work, 1950; Festival of Britain, 1951; St. John the Divine, 1961; Dalton House School, Sevenoaks, Kent 1986.

Exhibitions

* 1953, 1958, 1960, 1963 The Royal Academy * 1958-61 Society of Portrait Sculptors * 1959 Smithsonian Institution, Washington * 1963, 1964, 1966, 1968,

, London * 1974 ''Ghisha Koenig Sculpture 1968-74,'' Bedford House Gallery, London * 1978 Wins Arts Council Award solo show at Galerie Husstege, Holland * 1986, retrospective solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery * 1986, 1994, 2005, 2010 Boundary Gallery, London; * 1993 Tate Gallery, London * 2017 Ghisha Koenig: Machines Restrict Their Movement, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koenig, Ghisha 1921 births 1993 deaths 20th-century English women artists Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts Alumni of Middlesex University Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Auxiliary Territorial Service soldiers English women sculptors Jewish women sculptors Modern sculptors Sculptors from London