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Barnett Freedman, Artist

June 2, 2013
by David Buckman

I was delighted to invite David Buckman, author of the authoritative book about the East London Group From Bow to Biennale, to write this feature about Barnett Freedman (1901–1958) who was born in Stepney. An equally talented yet less-well-known contemporary of Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious, his work deserves to be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Barnett raises his hat in Kensington Gardens to celebrate designing the Jubilee stamp for George V

Odds were heavily stacked against Barnett Freedman becoming a professional artist. Born in 1901 to a poor Jewish couple, living at 79 Lower Chapman St, Stepney, who had emigrated to the East End of London from Russia, Barnett’s childhood was scarred by ill-health and he was confined to bed between the ages of nine and thirteen. Yet he educated himself, learning to read, write, play music, draw and paint, all within a hospital ward. His nephew, Norman, recalled that “He played the violin for the king,” but that “When he acquired a bicycle his mother cut off the tyres as she considered it too dangerous for her son to ride.”

By sixteen, Barnett was earning his living as a draughtsman to a monumental mason for a few shillings a week. He made the best of this unexciting work in the day, spending his evenings at St Martin’s School of Art for five years from 1917. Eventually, he moved to an architect’s office, working up his employer’s rough sketches and, during a surge of war memorial work, honing his skills as a lettering artist.

For three successive years, Barnett failed to win a London County Council Senior Scholarship in Art that would enable him to study full time at the Royal College of Art under the direction of William Rothenstein.  Finally, Barnett presented a portfolio of work to Rothenstein in person. Impressed, he put Barnett’s case to the London County Council Chief Inspector himself and a stipend of £120 a year was made, enabling Barnett to begin his studies in 1922. Under the direction of Rothenstein, Barnett’s talent flourished, taught by such fine draughtsmen as Randolph Schwabe and stimulated by fellow students Edward Bawden, Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore, Vivian Pitchforth and John Tunnard. Eight years after his entry, Rothenstein took Barnett onto the staff.

Although he could be prickly and even alarming on occasion, Barnett was revered by his former students. My late friends Leonard Appelbee and his wife Frances Macdonald, both artists, never stopped talking of his kindness. Burly Leonard used to help lift Barnett’s heavy lithographic stones when they were too much for the artist to manage alone, and when once Leonard and Frances considered moving to Hampstead, Barnett retorted – “You don’t want to go there.  It’s an ‘orrible place!” According to Professor Rogerson, “He was a volatile character who did not respect authority and was always at war with the civil servants … yet I know people who were taught by him who say he was a very careful and punctilious teacher who paid a lot of attention to his students – though he could fire off if he was angry. At heart, I think he pretended to be a harsh kind of person but he was very good to a lot of people.”

After leaving the Royal College in 1925, Barnett had his share of problems. He painted prolifically but sold little – with his work only gradually being bought by collectors, although the Victoria and Albert Museum and Contemporary Art Society eventually bought drawings. In 1929, ill-health prevented him from working for a year. In 1930, he married Claudia Guercio whom he had met at art school, born in Lancashire of Sicilian ancestry. She also became a fine illustrator.  Their son Vincent recalls that the home they created “was a warm place, vibrant with sound and brilliant colours, excitement darting from the music at night, the pictures on the walls, and the constant talking.”

Barnett enjoyed a long association with Faber and Faber, and his colour lithography and black-and-white illustrations for Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Memoirs of an Infantry Officer,’ published in 1931, are outstanding. Works by the Brontë sisters, Walter de la Mare, Charles Dickens, Edith Sitwell, William Shakespeare and Leo Tolstoy benefited from his inspired illustration. Barnett believed that “the art of book illustration is native to this country … for the British are a literary nation.” He argued that “however good a descriptive text might be, illustrations which go with the writings add reality and significance to our understanding of the scene, for all becomes more vivid to us, and we can, with ease, conjure up the exact environment – it all stands clearly before us.”

He was also an outstanding commercial designer, producing a huge output of work for clients including Ealing Films, the General Post Office, Curwen Press, Shell-Mex and British Petroleum, Josiah Wedgwood and London Transport. The series of forty lithographs by notable artists for Lyons’ teashops was supervised by Barnett, including his famous and beautiful auto-lithographs ‘People’ and ‘The Window Box.’ Barnett wrote and broadcast on lithography and other aspects of art, with surviving scripts showing him to have been a natural talent at the microphone.  When artists were being chosen for the series ‘English Masters of Black-and-White’ just after the Second World War, the editor, Graham Reynolds included Barnett among an illustrious band alongside George Cruikshank, Sir John Tenniel and Rex Whistler.

Barnett joined that select group who served as Official War Artists. Along with Edward Ardizzone and Edward Bawden, he accompanied the expeditionary force in the spring of 1940, before the retreat at Dunkirk, yet Barnett did not shed his iconoclasm and outspokenness when he donned khaki. Asked if he would paint a portrait of the legendary General Gort, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Barnett’s response was, “I am not interested in uniform … Oh well, perhaps I might if he’s got a good head?” On his return, Barnett continued to produce vivid, powerful pictures for the War Office and the Admiralty, gaining a CBE in 1946. But despite hobnobbing with military luminaries, Barnett never became posh, retaining his East End manner of speaking. Vincent Freeman recalls how Barnett once hailed a taxi-cab, “‘to the Athenaeum Club’, to which the incredulous driver retorted – ‘What, YOU?'”

After hostilities, Barnett remained busy with many commissions until in 1958, when he died peacefully in his chair at his Cornwall Gardens studio, near Gloucester Rd, aged only fifty-seven. Vincent recalls his final memory of his father, “discussing a pleasant lunch he had enjoyed with the family’s oldest friend [the artist] Anne Spalding.” Barnett was widely obituarized and his work was given an Arts Council memorial exhibition and tour. Subsequently, exhibitions such as that at Manchester Polytechnic Library in 1990 and new books have periodically enhanced his reputation.

Barnett Freedman is among my top candidates for a blue plaque, as one of the most distinguished British artists to emerge from the East End. There was a 2006 campaign to get him one in at 25 Stanhope St, off the Euston Rd, where he lived early in his career, but English Heritage rejected him, along with four others as of “insufficient stature or historical significance” – an unjust decision exposed by the Camden New Journal. The artist and Camden resident David Gentleman was one among many who supported the plaque, writing “He was a very good and original artist whose work deserves to be remembered. He influenced me in the sense of his meticulous workmanship. He was a real master of it.”

Professor Ian Rogerson, author of ‘The Graphic Work of Barnett Freedman’, considers Barnett “the world’s best auto-lithographer … A lot of people who do not seem to have contributed as much to the arts have managed to get blue plaques. Freedman’s work is being increasingly collected – and he is being recognised more and more as a major contributor to British art.” Of Barnett’s remarkable output, his son Vincent says – “A huge optimism and compassion shows itself to me in all his work and life. Humanity was his central driving force.”

Freedman family portrait with Barnett standing far left.

Barnett painting on the roof top as a war artist

Barnett shows his wife Claudia a mural he painted as the official Royal Marines artist.

Recording the BBC ‘Sight & Sound’ programme ‘Artists v Poets’ in February 1939, Sir Kenneth Clark master of ceremonies with scorer. Artists from left: Duncan Grant, Brynhild Parker, Barnett Freedman, Nicolas Bentley, and poets – W. J. Turner, Stephen Spender, Winifred Holmes and George Barker.

Barnett enjoys a successful afternoon fishing at Thame, Buckinghamshire, in the thirties.

Designs for the ‘London Ballet.’ (courtesy Fleece Press)

The Window Box, lithograph.

Advertisement for London Transport from the nineteen thirties.

Advertisement for the General Post Office rom the nineteen-forties.

Advertisement for Shell at the time of the Festival of Britain, 1951.

Design for Ealing Studios.

Cover for ‘Memoirs of a an Infantry Officer,’ Faber and Faber.

Cover for Walter de la Mare’s 75th Birthday Tribute, Faber and Faber.

Barnett Freedman’s ‘Claudia’ typeface.

Design for Dartington Hall, Devon.

Lithographs for ‘Oliver Twist,’ published by the Heritage Press in New York, 1939.

Barnett Freedman works courtesy Special Collections, Manchester Metropolitan University

You may also like to read David Buckman’s other features

From Bow To Biennale

Elwin Hawthorne, Artist

Albert Turpin, Artist

Phyllis Bray, Artist

Henry Silk, Artist

From Bow to Biennale: Artists of the East London Group by David Buckman can be ordered direct from the publisher Francis Boutle and copies are on sale in bookshops including Brick Lane Bookshop, Broadway Books, Newham Bookshop, Stoke Newington Bookshop, London Review Bookshop, Town House, Daunt Books, Foyles, Hatchards and Tate Bookshop.

19 Responses leave one →
  1. Greg Tingey permalink
    June 2, 2013

    Died aged only 57 ….
    What killed him, or was he just worn out?

  2. June 2, 2013

    He should definitely have a blue plaque. Is the house where he was born still standing?

  3. the gentle author permalink*
    June 2, 2013

    As far as we know, Lower Chapman St no longer exists…

  4. June 2, 2013

    Thank you, a really fascinating account of this artist. He does need to be better known.

  5. June 2, 2013

    OMG! Love this artist! Thanks so much for this post!

  6. Peter Holford permalink
    June 2, 2013

    I would give him a blue plaque!

  7. Norman freedman permalink
    June 2, 2013

    Thanks for a great article regarding my late uncle.

  8. June 3, 2013

    Very informative and enjoyable

  9. June 4, 2013

    If you want to buy some of BF’s work without breaking the bank, look for editions of ‘Lavengro’, ‘Anna Karenin’ and other books he illustrated during the 1930s – his lithos are stunning.

  10. Vincent Freedman permalink
    June 5, 2013

    Thank you so much for a delightful piece about my dear father. Obviously the family would love to see a commemorative plaque placed somewhere for him. If the site where the house he was born in is unsuitable, perhaps the house in Kensington where he lived from the early ’30s up to his death, and which contained his studio up to and all through the second world war might be possible? He produced a great deal of his most well-known work there, including the 1935 Silver Jubilee set of Royal Mail Stamps.

  11. Ellen Reimers permalink
    January 2, 2014

    A friend of Vincent and Kathleen Freedman from Papua New Guinea days would like to get in touch. I enjoyed reading about Vincent’s father and remember Vincent showing me some of the artist’s work when visiting the Fredmans in the south of England. Sincerely from Ellen and hoping for some way to contact my friends again.

  12. Marguerite Fletcher permalink
    May 30, 2014

    Dear Vincent
    For decades my sister and I have been searching for our ‘lost’ great grandfather, Louis Freedman/Friedman, a journeyman tailor of Russian origin (came to England from Riga). His last known abode was in the East end of London in 1894. He had run away from home – Hull area- with my great-grandmother and both were underage for marriage without consent . The union did not last and they separated, leaving both free to marry. Your grandfather is the only possible candidate that we can find, so we would be absolutely delighted to make contact with you. Even definite confirmation that your grandfather is not the same Louis Freedman as our Great- grandfather would be helpful. Our Louis alternated the spelling of his last name between Freedman and Friedman- as we have his name on birth certificates and the 1891 census. The family photo I found on a website shows a marked resemblance between your Louis and my father, his mother and her brother – Louis’ possible son- Frank Freedman. They all look more like Louis than the other family members. For it to be the same Louis, he would need to have come to England by 1889. I do hope you are able to contact me. Best Wishes

  13. Lowena Hull permalink
    February 6, 2015

    I stumbled upon this whilst looking for Barnett Freedman, so proud to be his great-granddaughter! I think my favourite would be the Sicilian Puppets or A London Street View- I really like the attention paid to the dress design!

  14. Stanley Leard-Freeman permalink
    August 15, 2015

    My father Alec Hyman Freedman was Barnet’s brother and I met Barnet on a few occasions when I was a child. He told me he was an atheist and a communist and inspired me to think on those lines. Friendly and considerate he told the story of his mother Booba and her husband who read and wrote English, German and Russian and had Yiddish newspapers sent from New York. On August 6 2015 l reached 87. So if any one is interested get in touch while armaggedon races to my finishing post.
    The story: Booba says to my father “Aleck’l vous is dous flying bomb the V.l.? Father replied “this is an aeroplane bomb pointed at London by the nazis. When it runs out of fuel the engine stops and it continues to fall over and into London.”
    #
    Booba replied “You say there is no pilot……there could be a most terrible accident.”
    #
    #
    # My telephone number is 01923 242067 during shop hours.

  15. edward chaney permalink
    September 6, 2015

    Extraordinary that EH rejected blue plaque…lets make sure he gets one when he’s allowed to be resubmitted…

  16. Carolyn Trant permalink
    January 19, 2016

    Hello Vincent…I was a friend and student of Peggy Angus, ( and wrote her biography)- she was a friend of your parents, and I am trying to find out more about your mother’s work. Do email me if you could help and I could send you my phone number; we admire Barnett”s work greatly and I have seen a couple of tantalising images of Claudia’s illustrations and would love to know more about her for another publication.
    Best wishes……

  17. Diana Laffin permalink
    May 16, 2017

    Thanks for such an interesting article- he is a fascinating man and I love his designs.

    I am using the story of Barnett Friedman in a talk I am giving at a history conference in July. I would like to have permission to use a photograph from this site. Please could you let me know how I go about getting copyright permission? Thank you.

  18. February 9, 2018

    This is such an interesting article, and it is great to see so much of his work. He used to do puppet shows with William Simmonds, the sculptor and puppeteer. William Simmonds would work the puppets, Eve Simmonds would play the spinet or virginals, Casty Cobb would hand William the puppets and Barnet would play the violin. These shows were immensely popular at country houses including Eaton Hall, where on one occasion the Duke of Westminster was entertaining Winston Churchill. Casty Cobb said that at Eaton Hall they did not know whether to entertain the puppeteers upstairs or downstairs, because Eve and William sounded upper class, but Barnet did not. Winston Churchill, incidentally, was asleep on a gilded chair. We are going to have an exhibition about William Simmonds and show a lot of his puppets at Gloucester City Museum from 12th October 2019 to 18th April 2020.

  19. February 22, 2020

    I recently bought an enchanting drawing showing three women with a fishmonger and a hungry cat. I bought it because I absolutely loved it and I was convinced that it was by ‘someone’ because it is just too good not to be. I have been trying to identify who might have drawn it.

    Unfortunately, it is not, as far as I can see, signed. However, another trawl through the internet this afternoon brought the work of Barnett Freedman and your website, to my attention. there are a great many similarities to his style, in particular to his design for the cover of Sassoon’s ‘Memoir’s of an Infantry Officer’. The drawing is certainly of a aspect of urban -East End London perhaps, life that he might well have drawn.

    My question is this , where -or who, as something of an expert on Barnett Freedman’s work as you seem to be, would you recommend that I show my drawing to, in order to see whether an expert might be able to verify if my drawing is by him? I would love to be able to put a name to it.

    With many thanks.

    Duncan Mirylees.

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