Letter Home - Sefton Internment Camp
Date made: 1940
Description: A stencil print of an internee sat on a bed reading a letter. Next to the bed is a shelf with objects on it and a roughly made table with a cup on it. The bed has pieces of paper or pages on it and a letter (official Civilian Internment Camp issue, namely a single sheet which folded with a tab into an envelop) on it. The print has 'Bloch 40' on it and is signed in pencil 'Martin Bloch'.
Martin Bloch (1883-1954) was born in Neisse, Silesia (now Nysa, Poland). He initially studied music and architecture in Berlin, but later took up painting and was largely self-taught. He was interned first in Huyton Camp, Liverpool and then transferred to the Sefton Camp in Douglas in 1940, his work appeared in the Sefton Review.
Background:
There were many celebrated modern artists interned on the Isle of Man during the Second World War, they were forced to flee Nazi Germany as the regime suppressed so called ‘degenerate’ art. Jewish artists were doubly vulnerable. We have an internationally significant collection of works created in the internment camps, with many of those artists going on to have high profile careers after the war.
Measurements: overall: 20.5 cm x 25.5 cm
Materials: paper
Object name: print
Collection: Art Collection
ID number: 2008-0115/1
Subject tags : #WW2INTERNMENTMUSEUMCOLLECTIONS