Irene Scheinmann (née Reuben-Karady) was born in Baghdad, Iraq. Her training began as a painter in London, where she convinced the iconic English artist and master printmaker Julian Trevelyan RA to mentor her in his Hammersmith studio. She would also study at Atelier 63 in Paris. Recognised during her lifetime for her significant experiments in etching, monoprint and collagraph, among other media. Scheinmann sustained a keen interest in print alongside her painting practice and an early interest in emerging digital media.
Scheinmann often deploys bands of colour to suggest spaces of colour where nature and body collide. Distended bodies and limbs, which may function as metaphors for figures in conflict or exile, surface and disappear. Elsewhere, geological representations of the body posit a sensuous presence, what one might today refer to as an “alterscape”, or place of retreat.
Scheinmann was deeply sensitive to lives and ramifications of social and political conflict. Her body of work, The New Wilderness, developed in the 1990s, was produced in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. The sombre melancholy finds release in Scheinman’s surrealist vistas.
Prolific throughout her life, Scheinmann was an elected member of Trace, the French printmaking association and the California Society of Printmakers. In 1991, she founded Print Europe, a platform designed to cultivate dialogue and exchange among contemporary printmakers across national contexts. Scheinmann has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including at the Royal Academy and the Barbican Centre. Her presentation in Fellow Travellers (2026) marks the first occasion her work will have been exhibited on a major public platform in the Arabic-speaking world, in the region where she was born.
EDUCATION
Studied painting and printmaking in England and France, working at Atelier 63 in Paris and with Julian Trevelyan in London.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1995, Irene Scheinmann (paintings, prints and mixed media works) and Dania Appel (sculptures), Ben Uri Gallery, London
1990, Images of Land and Sea (solo exhibition), Camden Galleries, London
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1999, Contemporary Print Show, Barbican Centre, London
1996, National Print Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
1995, National Print Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London
1993, Towards 2000, Ben Uri Gallery, London
1991, Print Europe, Concourse Gallery, Barbican Centre, London
1991, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
1990, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
1990, Art of the Printmaker, Royal Festival Hall, London
1989, US-UK Print Connection, Barbican Centre, London
1984, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London
COLLECTIONS
Ben Uri Collection, London
Radcliffe Infirmary Collection, University of Oxford
Glasgow University Art Collection
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
1993, Member of Ben Uri Arts Committee
1991, Founder of Print Europe
Elected Member, Trace (French Printmaking Association)
Member, California Society of Printmakers