35 Facts About Harry Weinberger

Primarily a painter with a love of colour, Weinberger taught art and illustrated books.

Harry Weinberger died at the age 85 on 10 September 2009.

Harry Weinberger was born in Berlin on 7 April 1924, the son of a wealthy Jewish industrialist.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Harry Weinberger's father moved the family from Germany to Czechoslovakia.

Six years later on 20 July 1939, when Harry Weinberger was 15, he and his sister Ina caught the last Kindertransport train to England, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Harry Weinberger remembered seeing rich paintings in churches in Czechoslovakia, which fuelled his later passion for Russian icons.

Harry Weinberger enlisted in the British Army towards the end of World War Two, and served in Italy.

In 1951, Harry Weinberger married Barbara Herrmann, an artist and later a social historian who had been his muse in Berlin.

Harry Weinberger was the daughter of the architectural historian Wolfgang Herrmann.

Harry Weinberger lived in Leamington Spa from 1969 until his death aged 85 on 10 September 2009.

On his return to England, Harry Weinberger was awarded an ex-serviceman's grant and moved to London to study under his previous tutor, Ceri Richards, at Chelsea College of Art.

Harry Weinberger did not do well at Chelsea; his modern colourful, expressive work was unpopular with staff and colleagues, who had taken on a rather more muted palette akin to the fashionable Euston Road School painters of daily life of the late thirties and early forties.

Harry Weinberger resisted studying under Oskar Kokoschka because he thought Kokoschka would try to mould his style too much, so in the end he decided to take lessons from the emigre German artist Martin Bloch, who he greatly admired, and who taught his cousin Heinz Koppel.

Harry Weinberger left Chelsea College of Art to join Goldsmiths School of Art.

Harry Weinberger taught art at schools in London and Reading, then at a teacher training college in Manchester in the early 1960s and later became Head of Painting at Lanchester Polytechnic where he worked for nearly 20 years.

Harry Weinberger retired from teaching in 1983 to focus on his studio career.

Harry Weinberger had several rules for himself with regard to his work.

Harry Weinberger rarely painted people except for a few portraits and self-portraits.

Harry Weinberger preferred to paint interiors and objects within them, and he never dated his work.

Harry Weinberger said that he would prefer if the viewer focused on the work rather than the time it was made, he did not want comments about whether his style was fashionable or not.

Harry Weinberger painted only what he could see, and in the 1950s made heavily impastoed and richly coloured landscapes and portraits.

Harry Weinberger's feeling for the pitch and weight of colour was unique, and became both more sure and more adventurous.

Apart from stories of his early years, Harry Weinberger did not speak much about his Jewish background.

Harry Weinberger maintained his own interest in his own definition of spiritualism through the artefacts which he collected.

Harry Weinberger was obsessed with masks, particularly African masks and what he called 'magic art'.

Harry Weinberger worked incessantly in his studio, well in to his eighties.

Harry Weinberger illustrated several books during his life and filled endless sketch books mainly using pencil crayons, particularly while travelling, which he loved to do.

Harry Weinberger travelled widely in the UK and throughout Europe, capturing landscapes and harbour scenes in Wales, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Turkey.

Harry Weinberger cited Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, James Ensor, Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Rembrandt and Paul Cezanne as influences and indeed it is easy to see references to each of these artists in his work.

In particular, Harry Weinberger cited the influence of Matisse and Van Gogh.

Harry Weinberger was a great friend of the writer Iris Murdoch over a 20-year period from 1977 until her death in 1999.

Harry Weinberger is a great painter whose genius is not well enough known.

Harry Weinberger's works relate us to the deep emotions and profound joys of the early periods of the century when painting was a great universal exploration: impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, symbolism, expressionism, when painters adored paint and worshipped colour, inspired by passion and controlled imagination and courageous faith in their art.

Harry Weinberger's work was exhibited regularly at Duncan Campbell Contemporary Art in London.

Harry Weinberger held several one-man shows in Berlin and was invited to participate in many group shows in Germany.