David Bomberg
A radical British painter who forged a stark, angular vision of the modern machine age before turning to a more expressive, turbulent style later in life.
1890–1957 (age 67)·British painter·Birthday: December 5·The Lost Generation
Biography
David Bomberg emerged from London's Jewish East End as part of the avant-garde 'Whitechapel Boys,' determined to smash Victorian artistic conventions. His early masterworks, like 'The Mud Bath,' were explosions of geometric force, reducing human figures to dynamic arrangements of sharp planes and vivid color, capturing the energy and alienation of the early 20th century. His service in the trenches of WWI, however, shattered his faith in pure abstraction. Post-war, Bomberg embarked on a lifelong, often lonely quest for a more tangible form of expression, traveling from Palestine to Spain. His later paintings of landscapes and portraits are thick with impassioned, heavy brushstrokes, conveying the weight and texture of the world with a raw, physical intensity. Largely overlooked by the establishment during his lifetime, his uncompromising journey profoundly influenced later British figurative painters.
The Lost Generation
1883–1900
Came of age during World War I. Disillusioned by the carnage, they rejected the certainties of the Victorian era and built modernism from the wreckage — in art, literature, and politics.
David was born in 1890, placing them squarely in The Lost Generation. The events that shaped this generation — world wars, depression, and rapid industrialization — shaped the world they entered and the choices available to them.
#1 When David Was Born
The biggest hits of 1890
David's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1890Born
Wounded Knee massacre marks the end of the Indian Wars
President: Benjamin Harrison
1895Started school
First public film screening by the Lumiere brothers
President: Grover Cleveland
1903Became a teenager
Wright brothers achieve first powered flight
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1906Could drive
San Francisco earthquake devastates the city
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1908Could vote
Ford Model T goes into production
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1911Turned 21
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire kills 146 in New York
President: William Howard Taft
1920Turned 30
Women gain the right to vote in the US
Home: $3,395President: Woodrow Wilson"Swanee" — Al Jolson
1930Turned 40
Pluto discovered
Gas: $0.20/galHome: $3,510President: Herbert Hoover"Body and Soul" — Paul WhitemanBest Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front
1940Turned 50
The Blitz: Germany bombs London
Gas: $0.18/galHome: $2,938Min wage: $0.30/hrPresident: Franklin D. Roosevelt"I'll Never Smile Again" — Tommy DorseyBest Picture: Rebecca
1950Turned 60
Korean War begins
Gas: $0.27/galHome: $7,354Min wage: $0.75/hrPresident: Harry S. Truman"Goodnight Irene" — Gordon Jenkins & The WeaversBest Picture: All About Eve
1957Died at 67
Sputnik launches the Space Age
Gas: $0.31/galHome: $10,550Min wage: $1.00/hrPresident: Dwight D. Eisenhower"All Shook Up" — Elvis PresleyBest Picture: The Bridge on the River Kwai
Key Achievements
- Created seminal early modernist works like 'The Mud Bath' (1914), a defining image of Vorticist energy.
- Produced a powerful series of paintings based on his experiences as a soldier in World War I.
- Completed an official commission to paint landscapes in Palestine in the 1920s, resulting in a distinct body of work.
- His late, expressive style, seen in works like 'Last Self-Portrait,' directly inspired the postwar 'School of London' painters including Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff.
Did You Know?
He was rejected by the Slade School of Fine Art but later studied there under Henry Tonks.
He taught at the Borough Polytechnic, where his influential students included Auerbach and Kossoff.
A major retrospective of his work at the Tate Gallery in 1988 secured his posthumous critical reputation.
His sister, Kitty, was married to the writer and poet Isaac Rosenberg.
“I seek to express the spirit of the age in the most intense way.”
