Mark Gertler: Inside Out - an Ecstasy of Destruction
Frank Vigon
The Essential Jewishness of his “People” The Slade School of Art - Jewish East End meets Bloomsbury West End The Darling of the Bloomsbury Set Dorothy Carrington - A
Toxic Love Affair The Tragedy of Self Destruction
Frank Vigon has been a headteacher of an inner-city school and a highly successful and highly popular Media Arts High School. He is currently an education consultant lecturing on education and examinations to teachers and sixth form students. He
lectures extensively on a variety of topics to adult audiences including Politics, History, Education, Art History, Literature, Cultural Studies and Judaism. He was responsible for coordinating and managing the campaign to restore the grave of the Jewish Pre-Raphaelite painter Simon Solomon and is currently lecturing and fund raising to restore the grave of the twentieth century Avant Garde artist and Bloomsbury personality, Mark
Gertler.
Mark Gertler (1891-1939) was a British painter, born to poor Polish-Jewish immigrant parents and he spoke only Yiddish up to the age of 8. In 1908–12 he studied at the Slade School, where he won several prizes. Gertler was influenced by Post-Impressionism, but his style was highly individual, with
strong elements of eastern European folk art. His best-known work is perhaps Merry-Go-Round (1916, Tate, London), a powerful image — probably a satire on militarism—in which figures spin on fairground horses in a mad, futile whirl. Opinions on his work vary. DH Lawrence is reputed to have said the Merry-Go-Round was the best modern painting he had seen; Virginia Wolf is quoted as saying “What an
egoist, we have been talking of Gertler for some 30 hours”.