Berlin
Where did Fermin Rocker live from 1919 to 1929?
Fermin Rocker Fermin Rocker ( 22 December 1907 – 18 October 2004 ) was a British painter and book illustrator . He was the son of the anarcho-syndicalist theorist and activist Rudolf Rocker , a German , who had moved to London 1895 , and Milly Witkop , a Ukrainian Jew and anarchist and feminist activist , who had fled to London in 1894 . Rocker was born in Stepney , East London in 1907 and named after the Spanish anarchist and mayor of Cádiz Fermín Salvochea . During his youth , he got to know many prominent anarchists such as Errico Malatesta and Peter Kropotkin and often attended anarchist meetings with his father , a prominent activist , whom he fondly recalls in his 1998 memoir . Later he would also meet Augustin Souchy , Emma Goldman , Alexander Berkman , Erich Mühsam , Nestor Makhno , and Buenaventura Durruti . During this period he learned to draw , guided by his half-brother Rudolph , and exhibited a natural aptitude . When World War I broke out , both his parents were interned as enemy aliens , along with many naturalised Germans and Russians , his father in 1914 , his mother in 1916 . In 1918 , they were released and moved to the Netherlands , then rapidly to Berlin where his artistic practice developed . Fermin Rocker trained as a lithographer . His early works consisted of sketches , watercolours , and graphic work . He also started mixing in the artist milieu of Berlin . In 1929 , Rocker followed his father on a lecture tour in the United States . Contrary to his original plans , he remained in New York . After the Machtergreifung in 1933 , his parents joined him there to live in a rural commune in New York State.He worked as draftsman , a cartoon animator , a commercial artist , and as a book illustrator . Among his employers was the Survey Graphic . In 1944 , he had his first one-man exhibition in New York . His works would also be exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art , the Whitney Museum , and the Chicago Art Institute . The Library of Congress bought some works of his . In 1946 , he received a prize from the Philadelphia Print Club for his graphic works . In 1952 , he married Ruth Robins , a dentist from California who he had met in New York . In the same year , his mother died ; three years later his father followed . In 1956 , he visited the United Kingdom for the first time since 1929 . His wife liked the continent so much that she returned to settle in England in 1970 , Fermin following her in 1972 , to escape the crime and expensive rents in New York , and because Rocker thought New York had become ugly . He and Ruth lived in Tufnell Park for the rest of their long lives . Rocker illustrated books for the Oxford University Press and did paintings on the side . Mick Jagger bought a painting for £4,000 from him depicting Basque refugees fleeing Francos allies towards the French border . Aside from his animation work , Rocker worked in the realist tradition , mostly landscape paintings with warm colors up to this point . His images were rarely overtly political and after his move to New York he had mostly concentrated on oil paintings of intimate everyday scenes . Once back in London , his style evolved . He started painting still lifes and even political paintings such as the one he sold to Jagger . His colour palette became darker and more melancholy . Rockers relationship to Anarchism was ambiguous . He was deterred by the endless feuds and factionalism within Anarchism and acknowledged that capitalism had raised the standard of living . After Rocker turned 65 , he quit illustrating and concentrated on painting instead . He had 13 solo exhibitions in the last twenty years of his life , mostly at Stephen Bartley Gallery , in Chelsea , London . In 1989 , Ruth Rocker died and the same year he published an account of his childhood in London . Rocker died peacefully aged 96 on October 18th 2004 . External links . - Fermin Rocker at AskART . The Artists Bluebook .