Item NMC/1538 - Rabbi with dove

Eli Montlake, born in 1923, was an artist and sculptor from Giffnock in Glasgow. He studied at The Glasgow School of Art in the 1930s and 1940s. His father changed the family name of Mundlak to Montlake in Glasgow where Eli, short for Elijah, was born and grew up. His talent was recognised vey early and he attended The Glasgow School of Art and later art school in London when he stayed with his uncle and cousins.

His wartime Glasgow art circle included refugee artists like Josef Herman and Jankel Adler, and talented locals like Robert Frame and Helen Biggar, some of whom joined him in London when he moved there permanently. They exhibited as the New Scottish Group at the Edinburgh Festival in 1947; and as the Gorbals Artists when Glasgow Unity brought their famous production of The Gorbals Story (1946) to London in 1948.

On 11 Oct 1948, Eli Montlake married Helen Biggar at Wandsworth register office in London, however she died five years later in 1953. In 1955 he married Irene Crooks at the Chelsea Registry Office in London. He later moved to Ibiza and lived there for the rest of his life. He died aged 69 on 11 Aug 1992 and is buried in Ibiza.

Some information provided by a private researcher.