© The William Roberts Society, London

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 absorbtion 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 sculptor Enrico Glicenstein when he visited England the same year (Glicenstein's bronze of Zangwill was acquired for the Society in 1925).