Heinz Koppel

(1919 Berlin, Germany – 1980 Cwmerfyn, Wales)

Immigrated to England 1938

Heinz Koppel was born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany in 1919 and showed an early interest in art, taking private lessons while still at school. Following the rise of Nazism, his family removed to Prague for safety in 1933, and here, Koppel took further private lessons from the painter Friedrich (later Fred) Feigl (who also later fled to England in 1939). In 1935 Koppel travelled to London and briefly studied under Martin Bloch at his School for Contemporary Painting until, after losing their German citizenship, the Koppel family became ‘stateless persons’, living briefly in Italy and Antwerp, before gaining Costa Rican citizenship and eventually returning to Britain in 1938. The family settled near Pontypridd, Wales in 1939, and Koppel resumed lessons with Bloch in London. In 1941 he took up a teaching position himself at the Burslem School of Art in Stoke-on-Trent. In 1942 exhibited at fellow German-Jewish émigré Jack Bilbo’s Modern Art Gallery in London.

In 1944 Koppel moved to the mining town of Dowlais in South Wales, after accepting a post as an art teacher in the Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement (a school for workers and their families); he established the Merthyr Tydfil Art Society the same year. In 1947 he exhibited with the Welsh Arts Council, becoming head of the Dowlais Art Centre in 1948, and leading a Dowlais group exhibition at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, while exhibiting concurrently in London at both the Kingly Gallery and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. In 1956 he returned to the capital, exhibiting at Helen Lessore’s Beaux Art Gallery (1958, 1960, 1963) and participated in group shows at Ben Uri Gallery (1946 and 1960). He taught at Hornsey (1960) and Camberwell Schools of Art (1960-63), Liverpool College of Art (1964), and at the Slade School of Fine Art, before returning to Aberystwyth, where he spent his final years. His final exhibition was at the Oriel Gallery, Cardiff in 1978.

Heinz Koppel died in London, England in 1980. A retrospective was held at the Gillian Jason Gallery, London in 1988 and at the Berlin Centrum Judaicum in 2010. His work is in UK collections including the Arts Council Collection, Ben Uri Collection, the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, Newport Museum & Art Gallery, and Tate.

Annunciation, 1950

Oil on canvas

50.5 x 63.5 cm

Heinz Koppel Picture Trust

© The Estate of Heinz Koppel

Heinz Koppel, Annunciation, 1950

Koppel was one of many artists to revisit popular biblical stories, but his retelling of the Annunciation, in which the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive a son, Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is highly original. It follows convention only in the positioning of his figures – the angel Gabriel (left), the Virgin Mary (right) and the Holy Spirit fluttering above them – and perhaps also in Mary’s uncertain expression as she receives the news. The nakedness of both figures is highly unusual, as is their non-naturalistic treatment, and the foregrounding of details such as Gabriel’s enlarged and exaggerated hand as he plays a harp or lyre and Mary’s long, dangling earring. The vivid yellow palette which provides the backdrop to the composition conveys the joyful nature of the announcement.

Happy Family, 1953

Tempera on hardboard

102 x 76 cm

Heinz Koppel Picture Trust

© The Estate of Heinz Koppel

Heinz Koppel, Happy Family, 1953

Happy Family was executed while Koppel was living in Dowlais, South Wales, initially working as an art teacher in Merthyr Tydfil Educational Settlement (a school for workers and their families), and then as Head of the Dowlais Art Centre, in the years when his own young family was rapidly expanding. As in his other compositions from this period, his bright palette and non-naturalistic treatment of the figures combine to create a mood of fantastical storytelling. The three children, particularly the central girl with her laughing expression, swinging plaits and skirt ballooning out behind her, appear to form a joyful chorus as they float above the town like angels; her rounded shape is echoed by the comical form of a bended figure at the centre of the composition, almost bisected by a telegraph pole towering above him. Two dogs play or scrap on the road beneath them while beyond the road the town is revealed through a series of colourful rooftops compressed like the folds of a concertina.

Heinz Koppel, The Musicians, before 1960

This monumental painting depicts two musicians - a male cellist on the left, seen in three quarter-face, as he stands waiting for his cue, resting his chin upon his hand – and a female harpist, seen in profile, draped over her instrument as she plucks at its strings. The presence of a musical score to the boy’s left and a music stand positioned far behind the girl, as well as the title, suggests they are engaged in a performance, yet the size, scale and positioning of the elongated and flatly painted figures, together with the presence of the harp, suggests a religious connotation, recalling the work of early Renaissance painters such as Fra Angelico and Giotto, and drawing an interesting analogy with Koppel’s own earlier Annunciation (1950). Their youthful forms, the girl’s white dress and red hair, are also reminiscent of Mary and the Angel Gabriel in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation) (1849–50, Tate).

The Musicians, before 1960

235 x 102 cm

Heinz Koppel Picture Trust

© The Estate of Heinz Koppel