For He Had Great Possessions

The painting draws on Drucker's enduring motifs. In 1906 she had exhibited a well-received painting, entitled 'The Aliens' at the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s 'Jewish Art and Antiquities' exhibition, which had been largely conceived in response to the 1905 ‘Aliens Act’ designed to limit foreign immigration rights. 'For He had Great Possessions', possibly a later reworking of The Aliens, depicts a migrant family, probably newly-arrived in England, seeking work and shelter; the presence of a barrow boy locates it in the East End. This single family unit is emblematic of the vast wave of eastern-European Jews escaping persecution and financial hardship who fled to Britain before, during and after the Second World War. However, the date also suggests that they are economic migrants, victims of the 1930s ‘slump’. The title invokes the biblical story in which a man refuses to part with his earthly riches in exchange for spiritual enlightenment, the subject of a well-known single figure painting by G. F. Watts (1894, Tate). However, Drucker’s painting suggests that although the father is not materially wealthy, the members of his family are nonetheless his ‘great possessions’.