Zygmunt MENKES (Lviv 1896- New York 1986) The... Lot 25

Zygmunt MENKES (Lviv 1896- New York 1986) The family Painted in 1928 Oil on canvas 130 x 97 cm Signed lower left "Menkes" Provenance: Former Niko Mazaraki collection Private collection, Paris. Exhibition: L'art Polonais Moderne, 19 October - 8 November, Galerie Bonaparte, Paris, 1929, reproduced p.59. Bibliography: E. TERIADE, Menkes, Edition le Triangle, 1932, reproduced. Avram Kampf, Jewish experience in the Art of the twentieth century, 1984, reproduced p.185. Zygmunt Menkes, born in Lwow (Poland) in 1896, spent his childhood in an environment that he himself defines as sad. He escapes through imagination by drawing. In 1914 he began studying at the Art Institute in his native town. In 1919, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and left for Berlin three years later. He understood that he had to go to Paris and finally arrived there in 1923. After a year, without resources, he is forced to return to Poland. He returned to Paris the same year with the firm intention of staying there. He appeared at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants from 1924 to 1927. He exhibited from 1926 until 1951 at the Salon des Tuileries. Menkes became one of the most original and important painters of the Ecole de Paris. In 1935, he moved to New York where he participated in numerous exhibitions, gained public recognition and received awards. He exhibited in Paris, Warsaw, Lviv, Berlin, New York, Tel Aviv, Toronto. His works are in the collections of the following New York museums: Museum of Art; Jewish Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, the Jerusalem Museum of Art, the National Museum of Warsaw, the Museum of Modern Art in Lodz and the Centre Pompidou. E. Tériade, the famous art critic, whose real name was Eleftheriadis, born in Lesbos, Greece, noticed the artist during one of his exhibitions in Paris. Tériade intr