David
Bomberg was born
in Birmingham in 1890. He trained as
a lithographer before studying painting in London
at the Westminster School of Art (1908-10)
and the Slade School of Art (1911-13).
In 1913 he travelled to France where he met Modigliani and Picasso.
Over the next few years his paintings combine abstract and Vorticist
influences.
In 1917 the Canadian authorities commissioned Bomberg to paint a picture
to celebrate an operation in which sappers successfully blew up a
salient of the German defences at Saint-Eloi near Arras.
His painting, Sappers at Work
was rejected by the Canadian committee who criticised Bomberg's Futurism.
Bomberg included himself in second version of the painting carrying
a heavy beam on his shoulder, to illustrate the burden of working
to order.
After the First World War Bomberg travelled
widely, visiting Palestine (1923-27), Spain (1934-35), Morocco (1930),
Greece (1930) and Russia (1933). David Bomberg
died in 1957.
David Bomberg, Sappers at Work (1917)
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