Born in Lødz in Poland, Jankel Adler lived in Germany in the 1920s and also made trips to Paris, where he was strongly influenced by Picasso’s work. After joining the Polish army, Adler was sent to Scotland in 1940. Stationed near Glasgow, he was released from service the following year and became involved with the local art scene, where his cosmopolitan outlook was highly influential. Moving to London in 1943, Adler had a major impact on several younger, British artists, notably Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde. Adler’s Jewish heritage was a great influence on his early work, but in the early 1930s he moved away from Expressionism to experiment with abstraction.
The term Degenerate Art ('Entarte Kunst' in German), was coined in the 1930s by the Nazis to ridicule modern art that did not fit with Hitler’s vision'. Confiscated by the German government, exhibitions of 'Degenerate' art took place in cities including Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig. In addition to this ridicule, the Nazi's banned artists branded with the term from exhibiting or holding teaching posts.