Kramer, Jacob
KRAMER, JACOB
KRAMER, JACOB (1892–1962), British painter. Kramer was born at Klintsy, in the Ukraine. His father, Max Kramer (d. 1915), was a painter and his uncle Sion was a court painter who exhibited at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893. The Kramer family immigrated to England in 1900 and settled in Leeds, where Jacob lived most of his life. At school the eight-year-old Jacob was recognized as being artistically talented and in 1907 entered the Leeds School of Art. With the assistance of the Jewish Education Aid Society he studied at the Slade School of Art in London in 1912. A gifted and sensitive draughtsman, Kramer never quite lived up to his early promise. His masterpiece is undoubtedly the powerful The Day of Atonement (1919) now in the Leeds City Art Gallery, together with the equally impressive Hear Our Voice, O Lord Our God (1919). Kramer illustrated Israel Cohen's A Ghetto Gallery (1931). He spent most of his life in Leeds and taught at the Leeds and Bradford colleges of art.
add. bibliography:
odnb online; M. Kramer (ed.), Jacob Kramer: A Memorial Volume (1969); Jacob Kramer Reassessed (Ben Uri Art Society, London) 1984.
[Charles Samuel Spencer]