© Benno Elkan estate

Elkan’s sculpture includes both lifelike busts of well-known artists and politicians and work on religious themes. Both interests are combined in this portrait of Slovakian-born émigré Dr. Joseph Herman Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the British Empire from 1914-46, one of the foremost spiritual leaders of Jewry, and a dedicated Zionist. In 1938-39 the Ben Uri Chairman's report noted that Elkan, many of whose public monuments had been destroyed by the Nazis, had given a talk at the society on 'Conception and Style in Sculpture' in June 1939.