Wounded (Portrait of a man in a cap)

After joining the Polish Army in exile following the outbreak of the Second World War, Adler was evacuated to Scotland in 1940, where he was demobilized owing to poor health in 1941. Wounded was probably executed during this period. The title is reminiscent of his larger oils, The Mutilated (1942-43), completed in London, and In No Man’s Land (1943, Tate) and is characteristic of Adler's haunting portraits from his early years in exile in Britain, drawing on his Polish-Jewish identity, his concern for the fate of his own family and his knowledge of the wider European tragedy then unfolding. Broad patches of colour outline the soldier’s uniform and his outstretched bandaged hands and what appears to be a further bandage around the soldier's head; touches of red suggest blood. The style is broadly reminiscent of Picasso, one of Adler’s two dominant influences, alongside Paul Klee.