Mark GERTLER
English 1891-1939
The apple woman and her husband
1912
oil on canvas
66.0 x 56.0 cm
Purchased 1953
3002-4

Mark Gertler was born at Spitalfields in the East End of London, son of a poor Polish migrant family. He had no formal art training until he was fifteen, when he attended evening classes at the Regent St Polytechnic.

In 1908 he won a scholarship to the Slade School of Art. The apple woman and her husband was painted just after Gertler left the Slade, and was loosely based on the subject of ‘apple gatherers’, set for the Slade Sketch Club in 1912. His parents Louis and Golda Gertler are the models for this painting and posed for numerous compositions in this period.

The apple woman and her husband received critical acclaim when it was shown at the New English Art Club in 1912, where it was praised The apple woman and her husband for its sureness of purpose, fine colour and strong sense of form.