Julie Held

(b. 1958 London, England – Lives in London, England)

Second generation German-Jewish émigrée

Julie Held was born in London, England in 1958, the daughter of GermanJewish émigrés who both fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and made their lives in England. Her mother, Gisela Held, was a professional sculptor and Julie was fascinated by drawing from an early age. She trained at Camberwell School of Art (1977-81), followed by a post-graduate diploma at the Royal Academy Schools (1982-85). She is the recipient of a number of awards including the Picker Fellowship, Kingston Polytechnic, where she had her first solo exhibition in 1982, and The Brandler Prize in 2002. Her painting, Girl with a Cat (a portrait of her niece) was purchased by Ben Uri Jewish Artist of the Year Award in 1991. She held a solo show at Ben Uri Gallery in 1996, followed by a joint exhibition with Shanti Panchal, Regard and Ritual, in 2007. Held has had solo exhibitions in Prague, Leipzig and Hamburg, as well as in London, at Eleven Spitalfields Gallery (2014), followed by a joint exhibition with her former tutor Tony Eyton (2017), and a further solo exhibition at the London Jewish Culture Centre (2015). She regularly exhibits at group exhibitions including the Royal Academy summer exhibitions, The Jerwood Drawing Prize, The Threadneedle Prize and her portrait of her father, Peter Held, My Father (2011) was shortlisted for the B.P. Portrait Award.

Held is a former tutor at the Camden Institute, the Barnet College of Further Education, and the University of Wolverhampton, and is currently a visiting lecturer at the Prince’s Drawing School in London. She was elected a member of the Royal Watercolour Society in 2003 and is also a member of the London Group.

Her work is held in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection; Nuffield College, Oxford University; The Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln; the Ruth Borchard Portrait Collection; and the Women’s Art Collection, University of Cambridge.

Julie Held, Commemoration, 1993

Memory and identity are important concepts in Julie Held’s art. She has commented elsewhere that her ‘sense of Jewishness’ is broadly based within the German Jewish tradition. ‘All émigrés’, she has noted, ‘must experience the dilemma of assimilation and the retention of identity’. Colour is also central to her practice, expressing poignancy and an ongoing preoccupation with the powerful yet fragile cycle of life.

In Commemoration, the anniversary being marked is not clear – an element of mystery often lies at the heart of Held’s narrative paintings – but the gathering includes three generations of women, including the artist’s aunt and her sister (sat with her back to the viewer) regarding her own reflection in a mirror. The healthy complexions of the younger women are in stark contrast to the pallor of the elders, especially against the acid yellow of the window. The still-life objects and the mirror together function as a ‘memento mori’ –suggesting the transience of life.

Commemoration, 1993

Oil on canvas

152.5 x 107 cm

Ben Uri Collection

Purchased 1993

© Julie Held

The Shoe Shop, 2004

Oil on canvas

90.8 x 86 cm

Ben Uri Collection

Presented by the artist 2008

© Julie Held

Julie Held, Shoe Shop III, 2004

Shoe Shop III, the third in a series of paintings of this title, combines self- portraiture with the artist’s ongoing interest in the symbolic value of objects and in shops as subject-matter, stemming from childhood visits to Florence. The red shoe, an object of desire, recurs in several of Held’s paintings, particularly in relation to women. The window is a further recurring motif that separates the subject from the objects, and the viewer from them both, also allowing both artist and viewer to stand on the outside looking in. Julie Held,

Julie Held, My Father, 2011

Held’s deeply felt portraiture is centred on a familiar cast of sitters, chief among them her father, Peter Held, the subject of numerous portraits over the years and, until his death in 2018, probably her most frequent sitter; each session deepening the bond between them both as father and daughter as well as artist and sitter.

Peter Held, born into a Jewish family in Leipzig, Germany, fled to England in the 1930s but (unlike the artist’s mother, Gisella), frequently returned to his birthplace in later life, receiving the freedom of his native city shortly before his death. In this moving portrait, shortlisted for the 2011 B.P. Portrait Award, he is portrayed as a dignified, ageing figure, sitting patiently in his chair, wrapped against the cold, calmly meeting the viewer’s gaze.