Sam Rabin the Art of the Ring March 2026
There was a rare opportunity to see the works by Sam Rabin at the Ben Uri Gallery London in Feb/March/April 2026. This was the largest exhibition of his work since the Dulwich Picture Gallery retrospective in 1985. The show had record attendance.
To read an essay ‘Punching above his Weight’ by Bill Crow click here
PRESS NEWS
SAM RABIN & THE ART OF THE RING
SAM RABIN WAS BACK IN TOWN,
AND AT THE BEN URI GALLERY.
The art studio and the boxing ring ruled Sam Rabin’s extraordinary life, and now after 40 years here he was back in London, at the Ben Uri, Europe’s leading museum and research centre for the contribution immigrants have made to British art, which opened on 4th February until May 2026.
It Featured an impressive array of works by a painter, sculptor and draughtsman, we were treated to a masterly display of light and space, as he moved effortlessly from the exquisite figurative to near abstraction.
In 2024, after years of research Bill Crow completed and successfully launched a unique full biography of Rabin who has been scandalously neglected by the British art establishment.
Born into a first-generation immigrant Jewish family Sam attended the Slade in the early 1920s, and became by turns a gifted stone carver, wrestler, boxer, singer, actor and an extraordinary teacher of drawing at Goldsmiths’ where he taught Bridget Riley and Mary Quant before devoting himself exclusively to painting the ring. George Bellows, William Roberts, Thomas Eakins, Kees van Dongen, George Grosz, and others, have painted boxing matches none like Rabin. His works are an endless exploitation of the precision geometry of the ring made even more remarkable by a draughtsman at the top of his game.
You can buy copies of the book here.
WHATEVER HAPPENED?
A series of questions as to what happened to some important issues in the history of painting.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO POVERTY IN ART?
Similarly our ‘Great British Artists’ seem to have completely forgotten about the need to address the subject of poverty. Up until the end of the 19th century British and European artists regularly addressed the subject of poverty. Artists like, Van Gogh, Millet, Rembrandt, Courbet, Hogarth and Herkomer did not shy away from painting this distressing side of public life and some of their paintings are stunning. (Images: ‘Gleaners’, Jean-Francoise Millet, 1857, ‘Woman with Dead Child’, 1903, Kathe Kollwitz).
WHATEVER HAPPENED?
A series of questions as to what happened to some important issues in the history of painting.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COMPASSION IN ART?
My research into the history of art has led me to believe that approximately a century ago compassion disappeared from the art produced by our leading artists, the national treasures dominating all our major exhibitions (image: ‘GASSED’, John Singer Sargent, 1919)