Clare Winsten was a British painter, printmaker, illustrator and sculptor noted for her role in early 20th‑century modernism and her association with the Whitechapel art circle.
Born in what is now Romania to Jewish parents, she emigrated with her family to London’s East End around 1902. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1910 to 1912, where she was the only woman among the circle known as the “Whitechapel Boys”, a group of artists and writers including Mark Gertler, David Bomberg and Isaac Rosenberg.
Winsten exhibited in the influential 1914 exhibition Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, and she worked across media throughout her career, creating paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Her portrait subjects included prominent figures such as George Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich. She also illustrated works by Shaw and completed public commissions such as a bronze figure St Joan in the garden of Shaw’s house.
Clare and her husband, artist Stephen Winsten (formerly Samuel Weinstein), were lifelong pacifists and became Quaker humanists. Her work is held in major UK collections including the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, and her legacy includes exhibitions that highlight her contributions to British art.
