{"id":583285,"date":"2026-05-14T09:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583285\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T09:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T09:20:10","slug":"uk-artist-defends-drawings-against-genocide-show-after-cancellation-arts-and-culture-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/583285\/","title":{"rendered":"UK artist defends \u2018Drawings Against Genocide\u2019 show after cancellation | Arts and Culture News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norfolk, United Kingdom \u2013 Matthew Collings, an English artist in his 70s, sketches on the papers in front of him at his home in the scenic coastal county of Norfolk.<\/p>\n

Over the past six years, since moving away from the art commentary and criticism that he focused on for decades, he has made more than 3,000 drawings.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Since October 2023, a good third of them have focused on Israel\u2019s genocide<\/a> against Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Many were to be displayed in a May iteration of his show, Drawings Against Genocide, at a London gallery this month. However, the show was abruptly cancelled following an intervention by a group called the UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which claimed the images were anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

The exhibit, which debuted under its current title in Margate earlier this year at Joseph Wales Studios, is comprised of 130 drawings that depict violence against Palestinians, with various blood-bathed military, political, and business leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear in the title what they\u2019re against, they\u2019re not against Jews,\u201d Collings said of his artworks in an interview with Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re against genocide. The genocide isn\u2019t committed by Jews. It\u2019s committed by Zionists. It\u2019s committed by Israel, which is a state that would not exist were it not for Zionism<\/a>,\u201d he added, referring to the nationalist, political ideology that called for the creation of a Jewish state. \u201cNothing in my drawings for genocide is remotely anti-Semitic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The allegations of anti-Semitism have focused on the portrayals of Jewish people in the drawings and allegations that various images depict blood libel, child sacrifice, and other hateful tropes.<\/p>\n

But Collings said there are no images of such tropes in the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf 130 drawings, 30 have recognisable public figures who are Jewish, and half of those people are heroes in my eyes,\u201d Collings said.<\/p>\n

These include images of Moses teaching the commandment \u201cThou shalt not kill\u201d, and a tea party of Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx, and the American political scientist and activist Norman Finkelstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the half that I criticise, I don\u2019t criticise for being Jewish, I criticise them for supporting genocide,\u2019 Collings explained to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

One drawing depicts the American comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who regularly expresses support for Israel\u2019s army amid the genocide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depicts demons and monsters, but they are artistic metaphors for Zionism, brutality, and violence. They\u2019re not Jews covered in scaly skin or demon eyes. They are an abstract concept, which is what art has always done.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Margate show, a pro-Israel activist and writer \u201cstaged an outrage stunt\u201d, appearing at the gallery and accusing Collings of being anti-Semitic, the artist said. Shortly after the opening, pro-Israel activists contacted Kent Police with claims that the show was anti-Semitic. Kent Police, however, found that no criminal offences had taken place.<\/p>\n

The writer in question was Sunday Telegraph columnist Zoe Strimpel, who later spoke about her experience on GB News, a right-wing media outlet, saying she wanted the police to \u201cdo something\u201d. She said she had met Collings at the show and told him that the Israeli state \u201cis also the Jewish state\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ThouOne of Collings\u2019s artworks of the Drawings Against Genocide show includes the words, \u2018Thou shalt not kill\u2019 [Courtesy: Matthew Collings]<\/p>\n

The Telegraph, a British conservative newspaper, later reported that, in a letter to the complainant, Kent Police wrote, \u201cThe artwork is critical of the Israeli state and its actions but does not include content that is directly abusive or insulting towards Jewish people as a group. There is also no indication of an intent by the artist to stir up racial or religious hatred, which is a specific requirement within the legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did my work for me,\u201d Collings said. \u201cJewishness does not mean Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after reaching their conclusion, however, Kent Police received more than 1,000 nearly identical emails from pro-Israel senders protesting their decision, prompting an investigation of a possible distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.<\/p>\n

Collings and his partner have, similarly, received hundreds of thousands of emails since various pro-Israel news outlets began covering the case and advocating for the closure of the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything \u2013 every single thing \u2013 that they say about the show turned out to be untrue,\u201d Collings says. \u201cThere is no anti-Semitic content to the show, as the police said.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter obtained by Al Jazeera, originally sent to the Margate venue and dated March 22, 2026, UKLFI urged the gallery to cancel the exhibit and claimed that \u201cmany of the images are likely to breach\u201d public disorder laws, warning that \u201cfor your information, a person guilty of an offence\u201d could be fined.<\/p>\n

\"IDFCollings says his works are an \u2018abstract concept\u2019 [Courtesy: Matthew Collings]<\/p>\n

UKLFI stated on its website that a similar letter was sent to Delta House in London, which responded by cancelling Drawings Against Genocide.<\/p>\n

In the statement, UKLFI wrote, \u201cWe welcome the decision to cancel this exhibition. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right, but it does not extend to the promotion of material that relies on anti-Semitic tropes, dehumanising imagery, and conspiracy narratives about Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delta House has not responded to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Anna Ost, senior legal officer at the European Legal Support Center<\/a> (ELSC), said she has seen silencing tactics before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t comment on this particular instance as I haven\u2019t seen the exhibition; however, the fact that the Kent Police found no case to answer points to this being another example of the pattern of legally baseless threats directed at suppressing pro-Palestine expression,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Despite the attacks, Collings remains undeterred, with upcoming shows being scheduled throughout the UK and in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever there is a battle lost, several are won,\u201d he said, putting down his sketching pencil.<\/p>\n

However, the cancellation of his May show created logistical concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever the venue is, the person in charge of it has to be an activist like us. If they\u2019re not, they will be intimidated or somehow persuaded by UK Lawyers for Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"AntiOne drawing depicts an \u2018anti-Zionist tea party\u2019 with guests including Karl Marx [Courtesy of Matthew Collings]<\/p>\n

In the ELSC\u2019s Britain\u2019s Index of Repression, a database created in collaboration with Forensic Architecture to track the repression of pro-Palestine expression, UK Lawyers for Israel appears 128 times, with 20 of these cases targeting artistic and cultural institutions, Ost said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince art and culture have the potential of reaching larger audiences, they would be a strategic target for those actors sustaining Israel\u2019s genocide and settler colonialism, to make sure Palestine is erased, and no one is talking about genocide or challenging complicity in it,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

David Cannon, chair of the Jewish Network for Palestine, told Al Jazeera in a phone call that the suppression of pro-Palestine expression is \u201csystemic\u201d.<\/p>\n

He cited recent protests against the British Museum after it removed several mentions of \u201cPalestine\u201d in its displays and information panels.<\/p>\n

The British Museum made these changes after the UK Lawyers for Israel intervened, as reported by the Guardian, mirroring the pattern of Delta House and several of the institutions tracked by the ELSC.<\/p>\n

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, spokesperson of Jewish Voice for Liberation, warned against taking Collings\u2019s images out of context.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drawings are shocking, as befits their subject matter, like Goya\u2019s images of horrors of war. They are not anti-Semitic. It is the genocide that is targeted, not Jews,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cA visitor is free to enter or leave as they wish,\u201d she said, adding that the title of the show provides viewers with the context. \u201cLacking context and explanation, it could be upsetting and easily misinterpreted. In this case, it\u2019s clear that a hostile individual chose to enter the gallery and then acted as if they had stumbled across his work all unawares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite receiving support from onlookers and pro-Palestine organisers, Collings expressed disappointment in the art world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear from famous and established artists who privately encourage me and buy my work and say they\u2019re sorry to hear this is happening to me, but they don\u2019t necessarily come out publicly and say they\u2019re sorry,\u201d he said. \u201cPro-Palestine sentiment is not welcome in the art world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norfolk, United Kingdom \u2013 Matthew Collings, an English artist in his 70s, sketches on the papers in front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2790,591,59,57,58,590,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-583285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-europe","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}