Sir Victor Gollancz

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Sir Victor Gollancz

by Ruth Gollancz (née Lowy)
oil on canvas, mid 1930s
17 1/8 in. x 21 1/8 in. (435 mm x 535 mm) overall
Given by Livia Ruth Gollancz, 2015
Primary Collection
NPG 7010

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

This oil portrait, painted in the mid 1930s by the sitter’s wife, depicts Gollancz around the time that his publishing firm was gaining its reputation as one of the most influential and innovative British publishing houses of the twentieth century. The mid 1930s was also the time that Gollancz was active in founding the Left Book Club, a progressive movement opposed to the threat of Nazism. It is an intimate depiction of Gollancz reading a book, a tribute to his life’s dedication to literature and its dissemination.

Events of 1930back to top

Current affairs

Amy Johnson is the first woman to fly solo to Australia. She flew the 11,000 miles from Croydon to Darwin in a De Havilland Gipsy Moth named Jason and won the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE for her achievement. She went on to break a number of other flying records, and died while serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.

Art and science

Noel Coward's play, Private Lives is first performed. The original run starred Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier as well as Coward himself. Private Lives became Coward's most enduringly successful play.

International

Gandhi leads the Salt March. The march to the coast was a direct protest against the British monopoly on the sale of salt and inspired hordes of Indians to follow him and adopt his methods of Satyagraha (non-violent resistance to the British rule of India).
Stalin orders the 'liquidation of the kulaks (wealthy farmers) as a class' in a violent attempt to centralise control of agriculture and collectivise farming.

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