Hannah
Frank, born in Glasgow in 1908, studied at Glasgow University and the Glasgow
School of Art.
She produced her trademark black and white
drawings from the age of 17 in 1925, and between 1927 to 1932 the GUM, the Glasgow
University Magazine, rarely came out without a drawing by 'Al Aaraaf', her chosen
pen name. Gilbert Highet, GUM editor in the late 1920s (and later Anthon Professor
of Latin Language and Literature at Columbia University, New York) was an early
fan.
Hannah's haunting black and white drawings are resonant
of the Art Nouveau period and with a hint of Aubrey Beardsley and Jessie King.
She took up sculpture in the 1950s, studying with Benno Schotz; and her drawings
and sculpture were exhibited in the Royal Glasgow Institute, the Royal Academy,
and the Royal Scottish Academy, throughout her artistic career.
Hannah
Frank continued to produce sculpture till her early 90s. In 2002, aged 94, she
moved with her husband Lionel Levy to a care home in Glasgow, where her drawings
and sculpture are on show and are much admired by residents, staff and visitors.
Hannah
Frank wants to 'leave footprints on the sands of time', in the words of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. This website is designed to help in this process. Hannah
Frank's drawings and sculptures are available for short loan exhibitions and signed
reproductions of her drawings are available for sale as prints and cards.
Thanks
to my cousin Jonathan Frank for his technological pioneering, and to Steve Landin
at Espresso Design for web design.
- Fiona Frank, Lancaster.
This
website is updated regularly. Please let us know (contact details at the bottom
of the page) if you spot any dead links or strange items.
Below we
reproduce an article by Frank Wordsall, written in 1988 as the introduction
to the first volume of Hannah Frank's collected art works. You can also see:
an article from Jewish Renaissance
Magazine, special Glasgow artists issue
read Critical
Acclaim for Hannah Frank
The early years
At the end of the 19th Century many refugees from persecution in Russia came
to Britain. Hannah Frank’s father was one of these, and settled in Glasgow
in the early years of this century. Glasgow at the time was one of the world’s
most prosperous cities whose products were universally admired. It was also an
international port, and thus it is not surprising that such a place should attract
artists and craftsmen from all over Europe. Charles Frank settled in the Lauriston
district of the Gorbals, where he began business as a master mechanic. After a
few years he married another immigrant, Miriam Lipetz, and eventually opened a shop at 67, Saltmarket for the design, sale and repair of photographic and scientific
apparatus. Over the following half century it was to become one of the best-known
photographic centers in the city.
Charles Frank's Glasgow shop
Hannah and her mother
Hannah at school
Charles and Miriam Frank with Leo, Hannah, Arthur and Morris
Hannah, one
of four children, was educated at Strathbungo School, Albert
Road Academy, and the University of Glasgow, where she graduated in Arts in
1930. She had a number of poems, and later a series of drawings, published in
the University magazine, all of which appeared under the name AL AARAAF.
Glasgow University Magazine, April or May 1930
What is the
significance of 'Al Aaraaf'?
Hannah Frank signed many of her early drawings
'Al Aaraaf'. This is the title of a long poem by Edgar Allan Poe which had
special significance for the young Hannah Frank. It was the name given by the
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to a mysterious star which suddenly appeared in
the heavens, and after growing brighter and brighter for a few days, suddenly
disappeared, never to be seen again.
After attending Jordanhill Training College, where she contributed drawings
to the New Dominie,
The New Domine
she taught for a number of years, principally at Campbellfield
School in the east end of the city. During all this time she attended evening
classes at Glasgow School of Art, widening her interests to include wood engraving
for which she was awarded the James McBey Prize. From 1930 to 1950 her drawings
appeared regularly at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts exhibitions.
The Glasgow School of Art
In 1939 Hannah
married Lionel Levy, a mathematics and science teacher whose expertise was to
prove invaluable when she came to take up sculpture. This she did at the Glasgow
School of Art where she took up clay modelling under Paul Zunterstein and
met the genial Benno Schotz who encouraged her to concentrate on that form of
art. Since the early 1950’s she has worked solely in this medium, exhibiting
at the Royal Glasgow Institute and the Royal Scottish Academy. There have also
been exhibitions at Stirling University, the Portico Gallery, Manchester, and
as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Hannah at her graduation
Contributions to the Jewish Community
Hannah and her husband Lionel Levy were active members of the Glasgow committee
of the Friends of the Hebrew University, and she contributed sculptures and drawings
to their fundraising appeals. In the 1940s she provided illustrations for various
Jewish organisations,
Jewish Telegraph, 6th February, 1948
and throughout the 1980s and 1990s
her drawings were used to illustrate the Scottish
Jewish Archives newsletter.
Scottish Jewish Archives, Summer 1991
Recent
exhibitions
In Edinburgh, where a selection of her work was
shown at her brother Arthur’s premises in Forrest Road in 1969, the drawings
attracted a great deal of interest, and from that day prints had to be made to
satisfy the demand from visitors from all over the world. A retrospective exhibition
took place in Glasgow in 1983. In 2002 her work was shown at the Peter Scott Gallery
at Lancaster University, and in 2003 there was an exhibition of her drawings at
the Gregson Centre, Lancaster (The Lancaster connection comes from Hannah Frank's
niece, Fiona Frank, who lives in the city and worked at the University for twelve
years).
The drawings
Hannah Frank’s
drawings have a strange indefinable quality all of their own. Considering their
poetic inspiration, it is not surprising that many express a pensive melancholy.
Others however are filled with sunshine and youthful exuberance, set in that garden
of the world’s innocence already echoed in the mediaeval romanticism of Burne
Jones. But there are also menacing night scenes fraught with fear and sinister
foreboding. In such an atmosphere death seems to be never far away.
The
elongated figures with their long flowing tresses belong to the world of the Macdonald
sisters and Jessie King. There are inevitably echoes of Aubrey Beardsley who has influenced every artist working in black-and-white since the beginning
of the century. The cloaks, richly embroidered with flower motifs may also owe
something to the sinister creations of the Irishman, Harry Clarke. They
are a special feature of the series of illustrations of the Rubaiyat. Other drawings
such as Garden seem to belong to the world of the Scottish artist, John Duncan.
But Hannah Frank’s world is very much her own, and quite unmistakable.
The drawings have an austerity and stylisation not to be found in the works of
other artists, particularly effective where there is a dramatic contrast with
white bodies against a dense black background.
The Sculptures
The latest drawings are dated 1952, and it is at that time that the earliest
sculptures appear. They are mostly figure studies, in plaster, terra cotta, or
bronze, and all on a fairly small scale. The influence of Henry Moore as
well as Benno Schotz and Paul Zunterstein can be seen in some of
them but, as in her drawings, she has evolved her own personal style.
Portraiture
has formed only a small part of her work, a fact to be regretted when one sees
the quality of the heads she has done, particularly that of her father.
The
sculpture has been exhibited at the Royal Scottish Institute since 1954, and also
at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy.
It has found many
admirers, notably in Sydney Goodsir Smith, who wrote when reviewing an
R.S.A. Exhibition in 1965 -- “Sculpture in Scotland, for long the Cinderella
of the arts, due largely to historical and religious causes, seems to be slowly
rising up out of the slough of despond and getting better and stronger, more imaginative
and creative. The great difficulty facing this profession is dearth of opportunity
... Hannah Frank’s voluptuous ‘Reclining Woman’ is classical in
her ease of pose and perfect calm, a lovely wee thing”. On another occasion
he had drawn attention to -- “...one of the most covetable small pieces is
a tiny green bronze, ‘Woman Resting’, by Hannah Frank”.
Hannah with "David" (1963)
Hannah in 1984 with "Bird Woman" (1969)
Hanna in "The Extra" newspaper 17th November 1988,
with "Pensive
Head"
Hannah in 2000 with her last sculpture "Standing Figure"
Sculpture
is a sadly neglected art, and considerable courage is required of anyone who wants
to practice it. That courage, coupled with an equally strong belief in the validity
of her art, Hannah Frank has in generous measure.
Frank Wordsall, Edinburgh,
March 1988 (with additions, Fiona Frank, 2003).
Ad multos
annos.
Hannah Frank continued to produce sculpture till her
early 90s. In 2003, aged 95, she lives in a care home in Glasgow, where her drawings
and sculpture are on show and are much admired by residents, staff and visitors.
Hannah
Frank wants to 'leave footprints on the sands of time', in the words of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. This website is designed to help in this process. Hannah
Frank's drawings and sculptures are available for short
loan exhibitions and signed reproductions of her drawings are available
for sale as prints and cards.
Fiona Frank, Lancaster, March 2003.
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