Zygmunt Menkes

Zygmunt Menkes (in France: Sigmund Menkès , born May 6, 1896 in Lemberg , Austria-Hungary , † August 20, 1986 in Riverdale , New York ) was a Polish painter and sculptor of Jewish descent who spent most of his life abroad . He was a representative of expressionist colorism .

Life

Menkes was born into a Jewish Orthodox family. His father was a businessman. From 1912 he attended the trade school in Lemberg and from 1919 to 1922 the art academy in Krakow . As a young man he sympathized with the Zionist movement and worked on restoring old churches. In 1922 he ran his own studio in Berlin under the guidance of the Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Archipenko . From 1923 he lived in Paris, where he was friends with Marc Chagall , Jules Pascin , Chaim Soutine , Joachim Weingart and Eugeniusz Zak . He often visited Poland, was a member of the local artist groups "Nowa Generacja" and "Zwornik". With these groups he exhibited several times in Lemberg (1932 and 1935) and Warsaw (1935 and 1938). In 1928 he traveled to Berlin and in 1935 to Spain with Artur Nacht-Samborski . He lived in Paris until 1935, from then on he moved to the USA.

He was a lecturer at the Art Students League of New York and lived in Riverdale, New York State. His friends included Marsden Hartley and Stuart Davis . He often visited France. Menkes has received notable art awards, including the Carol H. Beck Medal of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1943 , the Gold Medal of the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC in 1947 , the Andrew Carnegie Prize of the New York National Academy of Design and 1955 in 1967 the Jurzykowski Foundation Prize .

plant

Menkes painted figural compositions, portraits, nudes, still lifes , landscapes and symbolic scenes. He was an expressionist and belonged to the École de Paris . His early pictures were often kept in yellow-brown tones, while later works were predominantly dominated by red. He painted spontaneously with broad brushstrokes and palette knives . A moving series of pictures by Menke about Jews imprisoned and murdered in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II was created by him in washed-out blue and gray colors.

The artist exhibited works at the Paris Salon d'Automne (1924, 1925 and 1927), the Salon des Indépendants (1925-1928) and the Salon des Tuileries (1928, 1929, 1931 and 1938). His work was also shown at “Bernheim” (1930), “de France” (1931) and “Le Portique” (1932). The Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio showed his work in 1930 and the M. Sterner Gallery in New York City that same year . He was associated with the Associated American Artists Gallery in NYC and exhibited there in 1949 and 1955.

literature

• Władysława Jaworska, Agnieszka Morawińska u. a .: Malarstwo polskie w kolekcji Ewy i Wojciecha Fibakow ( Polish painting in the Ewa and Wojtek Fibak Collection ), Auriga Verlag, ISBN 83-221-0623-8 , Warsaw 1992, p. 196 ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} acc. Irena Kossowska, detailed detailed biography ( memento of the original from January 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Culture.pl, Art Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences , December 2001 (in English)