This little drawing is typical of the work of Josef Herman in the 1960s. He did many such sketches of Mexican donkeys pulling carts. Herman visited Mexico with his family in the early 1960s. His studies were usually freely drawn in pencil and watercolour, as in this wee sketch. The golden yellow and burnt orange shades in this drawing were often used in his art.
The work is not signed but stylistically is very typical of Herman's style - especially in his unique depiction of the donkey.
The study has been re-framed and now has a cream-coloured acid free mount and light oak wood frame. It is ready for you to hang straight onto your wall.
Dimensions: The frame is 33.5 x 40 cm. The image size is 12.5 x 18.8 cm.
BIOGRAPHY: Josef Herman was a Polish-British artist who was part of a generation of central and eastern European Jewish refugee artists who emigrated to escape Nazi persecution. He had studied at Warsaw School of Art (1930-31). Herman saw himself as part of a tradition of European figurative artists who painted working people, a tradition that included Courbet, Millet and Van Gogh, Kathe Kollwitz, and the Flemish Expressionist Constant Permeke. For eleven years he lived in Ystradgynlais, a mining community in South Wales.
After the beginning of WWII and the German invasion of Belgium, Herman escaped to France and then in 1940 to Great Britain. He initially lived in Glasgow where he met the sculptor, Benno Schotz. They became lifelong friends. Between 1940 and 1943 he contributed to a remarkable wartime artistic renaissance in Glasgow. In 1942 he met and married Catriona MacLeod and he had his first exhibition in Scotland at Aitken Dott & Son in Edinburgh.
In 1943 he moved to London and held his first London exhibition with L.S. Lowry. Herman's style was bold and distinctive, involving strong shapes with minimal detail. He continued to work until the late 1990s.
In the UK - the drawing will be sent to you with Royal Mail Next Day Special Delivery. This will cost £10 and applied to your order at the checkout.