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

Early life

Born in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

, London, on 19 March 1908, he was the youngest of four children born to the celebrated artist,

Sir William Rothenstein Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...

and his wife Alice Knewstub.

Art

He was home schooled and studied art at

Chelsea Polytechnic 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 ...

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 Cr ...

. 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 Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

for the

Recording Britain 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. T ...

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. T ...

. 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 Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in M ...

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 Kenneth Rowntree (14 March 1915 – 21 February 1997) was a British artist. Career and life Kenneth Rowntree was born in Scarborough, the son of Howard Doncaster Rowntree (1879-1974). He was educated at Bootham School, York. He studied at th ...

. 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 Shak ...

, Stanley Clifford-Smith,

Audrey Cruddas Audrey Cruddas (1912–1979) was an English costume and scene designer, painter and potter. Biography Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Cruddas moved to England with her parents when she was an infant. After leaving school she studied art at S ...

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 {{Use British English, date=July 2015 The Great Bardfield Artists were a community of artists who lived in Great Bardfield, a village in north west Essex, England, during the middle years of the 20th century. The principal artists who lived t ...

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 language, 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 i ...

, 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 postgradu ...

and

Stoke-on-Trent College of Art The Stoke-on-Trent Regional College of Art was one of three colleges that were merged in 1971 to form North Staffordshire Polytechnic (later renamed as Staffordshire Polytechnic and now Staffordshire University). The College of Art achieved Regio ...

, he also lectured extensively in the USA. He illustrated several books including the first UK edition of

John Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social ...

'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 o ...

'' (1937) and '' Acquainted with the Night: A Book of Dreams'' (1949) by

Nancy Price Nancy Price, CBE (3 February 1880 – 31 March 1970), was an English actress on stage and screen, author and theatre director. Her acting career began in a repertory theatre company before progressing to the London stage, silent films, talkies and ...

. 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 pur ...

(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 (1989) and important shows followed at the

Fry Art Gallery The Fry Art Gallery is an art gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. Recognised as an Accredited Museum by Arts Council England, it displays work by artists of national significance who lived or worked in North West Essex during the twentieth cent ...

, 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 nam ...

(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 Colches ...

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 Stisted is a civil parish, Church of England parish, and former manor near Braintree, Essex, England. Andrew Motion, a former Poet Laureate, was raised there. History of Stisted Stisted parish was a peculiar, held by the Dean of Bocking under ...

, Essex. She died in 2017.Rothenstein
/ref>

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 ''Print Quarterly'' is an international academic journal devoted to the history and art of printmaking, from its origins to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is published in London four times a year, in March, June, September, and Decemb ...

'', 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