Zygmunt MENKES (1896-1986), Fiddler, circa 1930.

oil, canvas; 92 x 73 cm;
Signed p. d.: Menkes;
On the reverse, on canvas number: No. 2 (in paint), on the painter's loom number: No. 331 (in ink) and a paper sticker with the number and description: 8894 / COULEURS ET TOILES FINES.

Provenance:
Abell Auction, Los Angeles, USA dated March 16, 2025 (item 543).

An artist with a rich past and experience, whose contribution to the development of painting and artistic potential has yet to be fully recognized. The painter was educated in Lviv at the Industrial School from 1912, and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow from 1919 to 1920. In 1922, he took a one-year course at the Berlin private studio of Alexander Archipenko. The artist qualified for the circle of painters from the École de Paris circle, which settled in Paris around 1923. At the same time, he was the most respected representative of the circle of Jewish painters functioning in Montparnasse at that time. Together with Joachim Weingart, Alfred Aberdam and Leon Weissberg, he formed the Group of Four, whose exhibition was held in 1925 at the Au Sacre du Printemps gallery. The painter shared a friendship with Eugene Zak and Marc Chagall. The ties linking Sigmund Menkes with Marc Chagall are also evident in the subject matter of his Parisian period paintings - they are characterized by nostalgia and longing emanating from the paintings. The situation is different in the formal context. The works of Zygmunt Menkes bear the characteristics of expressive painting and distinctive color, which can be attributed to the Polish school of colorism and links to the Krakow group Zwornik. In the mid-1930s he moved to the United States, where he eventually settled in Riverdale. The indicated time of the 1930s is also the symbolic boundary of two periods in the work of Zygmunt Menkes. Compared to his earlier compositions, which formally converge with the violinist's figure on offer, during his stay in America the soft impressionistic-fauvist way of painting, filled with ultimately undefined contours and elements with characteristic color tones, gives way to sharp lines and intense colors such as blue, green, red or black.