On Loan To Ben Uri Collection

Adler's powerful exploration of the mother- and-child motif (possibly a reworking of an earlier lost Madonna and Child from the Scottish period) references Picasso's monumental Spanish Civil War painting, Guernica (1937). The mother's heavy form fills the canvas, her expression is tender, her eyes filled with tears, as she cradles her child tensely and protectively. This motif was particularly poignant during Adler's British exile when he was separated from his partner, Betty, and daughter Nina, and unaware (until the end of the war) of the fate of his own family. Purchased by a Jewish patron in Glasgow, this work was first exhibited at the Exhibition of Jewish Art at the Jewish Institute in the Gorbals in December 1942.