Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Collection

This collection was the almost life-long project of the eponymous art collector who was an extraordinary patron of artists many of whom were largely unknown at the time of her contact with them. Ruth Borchard was born in a fishing village near Hamburg on February 10th 1910, the daughter of an assimilated Jewish businessman, Robert Berendsohn and his wife Alma. Brought up as a socialist and freethinker, she studied economics and social psychology at the University of Hamburg. In 1937 she married Kurt Borchard, who ran the family shipping business in Hamburg (and later in London). She fled from Germany as a Jewish refugee with her husband in 1938, eventually settling in Reigate, Surrey. During World War II she was interred on the Isle of Man with many other refugees who were classed as potential enemy aliens. She wrote about this and also many children's books. The former was unpublished and came to light only after her death in 2000. In the early 1950's she began visiting London galleries such as Beaux Arts Gallery, Drian Galleries, Redfern Gallery and Leicester Galleries. In a modest way she began to buy what she liked and could afford. She was also a keen supporter of Jack Beddington's book Young Artists of Promise. Using these 'resources' she contacted artists directly and asked them to execute a self-portrait for her but could only afford to pay one guinea (21 shilling) which in decimal currency is £1.05p! Most obliged.

The Collection is the UK’s only public collection of self-portraits by British and Irish artists, which by 2018 numbered nearly 200 works and was growing. Consisting of three collections – the Original Collection, the Next Generation Collection, and the Early Collection – alongside a biennial self-portrait prize, the Collection represents the very best of twentieth-century and contemporary self-portraiture. Artists represented include Raymond Coxon, Henry Moore, Carel Weight, Anne Redpath, Mario Dubsky, Patrick Procktor, Anthony Eyton, Ken Howard, Michael Ayrton, Felix Topolski, Roger Hilton and Cliff Holden. The original collection comprised very few female artists but the balance has slowly been corrected during the last decade.