The Sphinx offers a contrast to Kramer’s many stylised figures of men made around the
immediate postwar period. Whereas his male subjects tend to inhabit a Jewish religious or
biblical context, as exemplified by works such as The Jew and Day of Atonement, which
express religious contemplation or a deep shared observence. Kramer painted several
enigmatic female heads with striking, simplified profiles, and closed eyes, such as Ruhala,
(1917), whose striking image was used as the cover for the 1962 publication, Jacob Kramer
– A Memorial Volume, edited by his unmarried sister, Millie Kramer, and shares a dreamlike
mood with The Sphinx. These works inhabit an entirely different world from their male
counterparts. The Sphinx suggests an unknowable and inscrutable presence from a distant
culture, the stylised hair reminiscent of Ancient Egypt, the tipped features raised towards a
higher presence, recalling his images of Job and the processors in Day of Atonement.
Kramer showed the oil version of The Sphinx at the British Empire Exhibition held at
Wembley Park in 1924. Posthumously the painting featured in Jacob Kramer reassessed
(Ben Uri, 1994) and the Immigrant Generation: Jewish Artists in Britain 1900-1945, Jewish
Museum, New York (1983).