Margarete Marks

Margarete (Grete) Marks

(née Margarete Heymann, then Margarete Heymann-Löbenstein)

(b. 1899 Cologne, Germany – immigrated to Great Britain 1936 – d. 1990 London, England)

Dr. Barnett Stross MP, 1936 Lithograph 42.5 x 31 cm Ben Uri Collection Presented by Harold Marks 1989

The sitter Sir Barnett Stross (1899–1967) was a Polish-born Jewish doctor, raised in Leeds and a member of the émigré network in Stoke. A Labour Member of Parliament for 20 years, he led the humanitarian campaign, ‘Lidice Shall Live’ to rebuild the Czech village Lidice destroyed by the Nazis in 1942. Bauhaus-trained ceramicist Grete Marks established a highly successful pottery factory until anti-Semitic legislation forced her to sell it in 1934; she left for England in 1936. She continued to produce her own avant-garde designs for Minton Pottery, but was unable to recapture her earlier success. Her subsequent career also embraced painting and printmaking.