Portrait of Israel Zangwill

British author Israel Zangwill (1864–1926), the son of Eastern-European Jewish immigrants, schooled in Spitalfields, became known as 'the Jewish Dickens' or 'the Dickens of the Ghetto'. His best-known novel 'Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People' (1892) was highly influential and his play 'The Melting Pot' popularised this term to describe the American absorption of multi-national immigrants and was praised by President Roosevelt. Kramer's charcoal portrait head captures Zangwill in his penultimate year. Zangwill was the first President of the Ben Uri Society from 1921–24 and presided over the 'Grand Public Welcome' given for Glicenstein when he visited England the same year (his bronze of Zangwill was acquired for the Society in 1925). This exquisite depiction of the author drawn only a year before his death captures the same stern determination characteristic of Zangwill's portraits.