Edmond Xavier Kapp

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Edmond Xavier Kapp
Born
Edmond Xavier Kapp

(1890-11-05)5 November 1890
London
Died29 October 1978(1978-10-29) (aged 87)
NationalityBritish
Education
Known forPortrait painting and caricatures

Edmond Xavier Kapp (5 November 1890 – 29 October 1978) was a British portrait painter, draughtsman and caricaturist who during his career depicted many of the most famous politicians, artists and musicians of the time.

Life and work[]

A Brother and Sister Sheltering in the Underground, 1941 (Art.IWM ART LD 795)

Kapp was born in London, the son of a German-born wine merchant who was a vice-president of the London Jewish Hospital.[1] Kapp attended Dame Alice Owen's School and then Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied for the Medieval and Modern Language Tripos. Whilst at Cambridge he had a number of caricatures published in both Granta and the Cambridge Magazine and had a one-man exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1912.[2] After leaving Cambridge he set up his own studio and was successful in selling his caricatures to various weekly and monthly periodicals.[3]

In the First World War Kapp served in the British Army as a lieutenant with the Royal Sussex Regiment. He was gassed and, later in the conflict, worked in Intelligence at General Headquarters. After the war Kapp studied for a short period both in England, Paris and at Berlin University. He had a solo exhibition of drawings at the Leicester Galleries in 1922 and went on to have over several dozen solo shows in Britain and abroad.[4] Throughout the 1920s Kapp published several volumes of his drawings and caricatures.[5] Kapp produced a series of lithographs of diplomats at the League of Nations for the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.[1]

From 1922 to 1930 Kapp was married to the writer and political activist Yvonne Helene Mayer (1903-1999).[1] In 1932 he married the sculptor and painter Polia Chentoff who died the following year.[4]

In the Second World War Kapp received several short commissions from the War Artists' Advisory Committee, most notably for a series called Life under London depicting people sheltering in the London Underground and in the crypt of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields during the Blitz.[6][7] During 1946 and 1947 Kapp was commissioned by UNESCO to produce twenty portraits of the delegates at its first international congress in Paris. In 1961 the Whitechapel Art Gallery held a retrospective of his work which included some 310 pieces.[8] Shortly afterwards Kapp abandoned figurative work and fully embraced abstract painting.[9] Further extensive exhibitions of his work were held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in both 1999 and 2001.[4] Kapp's artwork is held in several national British collections, most notably those of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.[10][11]

Published works[]

  • Personalities, Twenty-Four Drawings, (1919)
  • Reflections, Twenty-Four Drawings, (1922)
  • Ten Great Lawyers, (1924)
  • Twenty-Eight Drawings, (1925)
  • Pastiche, A Music Room Book, (1926)
  • The Nations at Genevia, (1934–35)[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c William D. Rubinstein; Michael A. Jolles; Hilary L. Rubinstein (2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. palgrave macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-3910-4.
  2. ^ Grant M. Waters (1975). Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950. Eastbourne Fine Art.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  3. ^ Frances Spalding (1990). 20th Century Painters and Sculptors. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 106 6.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c David Buckman (1998). Artists in Britain Since 1945 Vol 1, A to L. Art Dictionaries Ltd. ISBN 0 95326 095 X.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Simon Houfe (1996). The Dictionary of 19th Century British Book Illustrators. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 1937.
  6. ^ Brain Foss (2007). War paint: Art, War, State and Identity in Britain, 1939-1945. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10890-3.
  7. ^ Imperial War Museum. "War artists archive, E Kapp". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
  8. ^ Whitechapel Art Gallery (1961). Edmond Kapp: a retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings, 1911-1961. Whitechapel Art Gallery.
  9. ^ Grant M. Waters. Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950 Volume II. Eastbourne Fine Art.
  10. ^ "Collection;-Edmond Xavier Kapp". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 1 June 2015.
  11. ^ "Search the Collection;-Edmond Xavier Kapp". National Portrait Gallery, London. Retrieved 1 June 2015.

External links[]

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