Maurycy Minkowski (1881/82, Warsaw - 23 November 1930, Buenos Aires) was a Polish painter of Jewish ancestry, best known for his genre scenes of daily life in the shtetls.

Biography

He was born to a wealthy family. An illness he had when he was a small child left him deaf and without speech.Brief biography
@ Culture.pl. At the age of seven, he entered the "" and showed an early talent for drawing, which encouraged his parents to pay for private lessons. In 1901, he began his formal studies at the

Kraków Academy of Fine Arts The Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. Jana Matejki w Krakowie, usually abbreviated to ''ASP''), is a public institution of higher education located in the centre of Kraków, Poland. It is the oldest Pol ...

, where he was a student of Józef Mehoffer, Jan Stanisławski and Leon Wyczółkowski. He graduated in 1905 with a gold medal. Having been informed of the

pogroms A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...

taking place in

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

, he went there to document the events with a series of drawings. After that, he made a study trip through Germany and Austria and returned to Warsaw. He stayed for only a short time however, then went to Paris in 1908, where he got married and decided to settle permanently, although he frequently went back to Poland to participate in open-air painting workshops in Kazimierz Dolny,

Sniatyn Sniatyn ( uk, Сня́тин, translit=Sniatyn; pl, Śniatyn; ro, Sneatîn, older ; yi, שניאַטין) is a town located in Kolomyia Raion of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, in western Ukraine along the Prut river. It is located at around . Sniaty ...

and Kraśnik. His paintings were exhibited in Vilnius and Łódź, as well as at the Zachęta. In early November 1930, he went to Argentina to help prepare the first overseas exhibition of his paintings. Later that month, unable to hear the honking of an oncoming taxi, he was struck and killed. The exhibition was presented as a posthumous tribute to his work, under the aegis of the Jewish Association of Argentina. In 1931, a committee was established to raise funds for the purchase of his works. In 1942, a great majority of his works were auctioned off. Most were purchased by the "Fundación IWO" (the Argentine branch of YIVO) and were stored at the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina. A few of the paintings were destroyed and many suffered some degree of damage in 1994, when the building was destroyed by a car-bomb, killing 85 people. The surviving paintings were exhibited at the

Eduardo Sívori Museum The Eduardo Sívori Museum (Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori) is a municipal art museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Overview Founded on the initiative of city councilman Fernando Ghio, who proposed the creation of a municipal museum de ...

in 2011."The IWO Foundation will present the work of Maurycy Minkowski at the Sivori Museum"
@ Ito Gadol.

Selected paintings

Minkowski-Praying.jpg, Woman Praying Minkowski-Pogrom.jpg, After the Pogrom Minkowski-Peddler.jpg, The Peddler Maurycy Minkowski-2.jpg, Poultry Market

References

External links

2 artworks by Maurycy Minkowski
at th
Ben Uri
site
"Deaf Polish Jewish Artist, Maurycy Minkowski (1881-1930)"
a blog @ the UCL Ear Institute Library website.
"Minkowski - Polish Painter"
by Kelly Stevens, from '' The Silent Worker'', vol.38 #1, @

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the first sc ...

"Maurycy Minkowski, A Nearly Forgotten Artist"
@ the Buenos Aires blogsite
Arcadja Auctions: More works by Minkowski.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minkowski, Maurycy 1881 births 1930 deaths Jewish painters 20th-century Polish painters 20th-century Polish male artists Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts alumni Painters from Warsaw Polish emigrants to France Accidental deaths in Argentina Deaf artists Polish deaf people Polish male painters

Biography

Selected paintings

References

Further reading

External links