My father-in-law Shmuel Dresner (Sam to his friends), who was an artist, has died. He would have been 92 or 93 on 2 January, the date of birth that was allocated to him after the second world war, his papers having been destroyed somewhere between the ghetto and the concentration camp.
He remained uncertain of the year of his birth as he had had to lie several times about his age in order to survive the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Theresienstadt – too young, and you could not be put to work; too old, and you would not be granted passage to rehabilitation.
When the camps were liberated in 1945, Sam was brought to the UK along with the other “Boys”, as they came to be known. He was traumatised and suffering from tuberculosis and malnutrition, and was taken to a sanatorium in Windermere, in the Lake District, to recuperate.
It was here that he encountered painting as therapy. He entered a competition, winning first prize, and this sparked his lifelong dedication to art. He later attended Heatherley School of Fine Art in London to study under the wood-engraver and painter Iain Macnab before going on to the Central School of Arts and Crafts and, in 1956, to the André Lhote Academy in Paris.
Sam was born in Warsaw, to Idessa, a seamstress, and Lev Dresner, a carpenter. None of his family survived the war and he had no photographs of them. When he tried to paint his sister, Guta, he realised he could not remember her face. His experience of the camps was reflected in his (often nightmarish) paintings, several of which hang in public galleries, including the Imperial War Museum. The loss of his mother, father and sister, and his attempts to find out what had happened to them, were related recently in the BBC television documentary The Last Survivors.
Sam worked in his studio at home until shortly before his death – his paintings span seven decades – and was well into his 80s when he gave up his job at the Stern gallery in London, where he had worked since the 1970s.
His legacy is a large body of work in the form of sketches, collages and paintings. While many of them reflect the horror of his early life, most, especially his landscapes and portraits, illustrate the joy he took from nature, from love and from survival.
Sam had many friends: he was a wise man and a good listener, who, despite his experiences, remained kind and good natured throughout his life.
He is survived by his two children, John (my husband), from his first marriage, to Pamela (nee FitzGerald); and Johanna, from his second marriage, to Ulla (nee Jonsson); and by three grandchildren, Reuben, Louis and Sophia. Both Pamela and Ulla predeceased him.
