Great Jewish artists everyone should know

For a long time in art history, there were almost no Jewish painters. The reason for it being - as so many times in human history - religion. As you might know, or have read here 😊, painting started out being fully devoted to biblical images. But depicting deity is strongly discouraged in the Jewish faith. The end of 19th and especially the beginning of the 20th century finally mark a possibility for many Jewish artists to emerge - not only because religion, both Christian and Jewish, loses its dominance in the everyday European life and simultaneously, the liberal (reform) Jewish movement is born, but also, because at last, Jews obtain possibilities to study and travel, which they have often been denied because of religious segregation all over Europe. In the cases of some famous American-Jewish artists, antisemitic persecution forced their families to immigrate to the "New World". Sine then, both women and men with Jewish heritage have made and continue to make great art all around the world. And while for some, faith plays an important role in their oeuvre, for others, it's antisemitism and persecution, and for others again, the  goal is the creation of a new artistic movement or the expression of the nature of humanity... Let's have a closer look!

Issac Levitan (1860-1900)

'Spring Flood', 1897

Born in a Polish shtetl (a tiny Jewish settling in Eastern Europe), educated in Moscow, Levitan exceeded in landscape painting and brought it to new heights, despite the heavily antisemitic climate of that time (with Jews being expelled from Moscow, excluded from social life etc.). Pavel M. Tretyakov, the famous collector who founded the world renown Tretyakov Gallery, was one of his beneficiaries. Levitan elevated the Russian landscape that previously has been deemed unworthy of portrayal and created spiritual, emotional and poetic illustrations, highlighting the beauty of the Russian countryside.

Sonia Delaunay (1887-1979)

'Portrait of L.N.Vilkina-Miskaya', 1907

Sonia was born and raised in the Russian Empire, but with the help of wealthy relatives was able to receive her education in Germany and later move to France where she found professional success and met her husband, the famous French painter Robert Delaunay. The Delaunays worked alongside each other and developed a cubist-inspired style called Orphisme. After her husband's death, Sonia designed costumes for the theater and cinema and had a fashion studio. She was the first living female artist to have her works shown at the Louvre.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) 

Ceiling of the Opera Garnier, Paris

Marc Chagall (aka Moishe Shagal) is probably the most famous Jewish artist of all time and one of the most famous artists of the 20th century. Like most artists from this list, he has Ashkenazi roots and like Levitan, was born in a shtetl in the Russian Empire. His career was made in Paris, just like Sonia's. He developed a very unique style and subject matter - combining surrealism, fauvism, symbolism, cubism and expressionism and depicting a world full of Jewish symbols, shtetl life, Eastern European landscapes, phantasy and folklore. 

El Lissitzky (1890-1941)

Untiled Design, 1922

Lazar M. Lissitzky is the only one in this list that did not leave his homeland Russia / USSR. Not only did he paint, but also work in design, photography and architecture. His skill made him firstly part of the suprematist movement alongside Malevitch, then he became part of the Soviet propaganda apparatus. In 1941, he died of tuberculosis.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970)

'Brown, Orange, Blue on Maroon', 1963

Markus Rothkowitz moved to the US from Latvia as a child. His most famous artistic phase were the so-called color field paintings, produced by exploring the limitless possibilities of layering colors in rectangular shapes. "I am not interested in the relationships of color or form or anything else... I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on - and the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures show that I communicate those basic human emotions" he said about his work. Rothko, one of the most famous American abstract artists, was chronically depressed and committed suicide at 66.

Lee Krasner (1908-1984) 

'Night Creatures', 1965

Had the New Yorker Lee not been married to Jackson Pollock, THE protagonist of abstract impressionism, she would have been even more famous. And even though she willingly sacrificed many opportunities to work and promote her paintings for her husband's wellbeing and success, she still managed to create a large and highly regarded body of work of mostly abstract paintings and collages.

Philip Guston (1913-1980)

'Painter's Forms II', 1978

The Canadian-American painter whose real name was Goldstein and who changed it, just like Mark Rothko, because of antisemitic ressentiments, never received a formal artistic education. He started out as a political painter and muralist (the KKK threatened his family and remained a lifelong subject of his work), later became an important figure in the abstract impressionist movement, before abandoning it for his signature Neo-expressisonist style. "I’ve come to the conclusion that the only ‘technique’ one can really learn is the capacity to be able to change" he once said.

Lucian Freud (1922-2011)

'Girl with a White Dog', 1951-52

Sigmund Freud's grandson and his family immigrated to London from Germany to escape Nazism. He became one of the most famous and valued British portrait painters of the 20th century. His surrealist and realist work has a very personal character - he painted only people close to him. And - forgive me the cheap joke - he liked getting close to many women apparently - rumor has it, he fathered around 40 children  😜

Alex Katz (1927)

'Man and Woman', 1960

Katz is a true New Yorker whose family escaped Russia after the revolution. The almost 100-year-old is predominantly a portrait and landscape painter. His style is defined by flatness and a lack of emotion, a new approach to postmodernist and contemporary realism, influenced by advertisement and television.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011)

'Tutti-Frutti', 1966

Helen Frankenthaler is another New York artist. She came from a wealthy Jewish family on the Upper East Side and her glamorous looks remind me of "The Marvelous Mrs Maisel." Like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Koonig and Lee Krasner she is considered a prominent figure in the abstract expressionist movement - a form of painting that is also called the New York School and can be described as an energetic, emotional, spontaneous way of creating large, colorful, non-figurative canvasses.

Menashe Kadishman (1932-2015) 

'Suspended', 1977

He is one of the most famous Israeli artists - painter and sculptor, born in Tel Aviv. Kadishman has gained international fame at the Venice Biennale in 1978 where he - a former Kibbutz shepherd - painted on actual sheep. Sheep became his trademark - both a biblical symbol and a reminder of the pioneer spirit of modern-day Israel. He has also produced an installation for the Jewish museum in Berlin called "Shalekhet"- some 10.000 iron faces with open mouths, lying on the floor, demanding justice.

Eric Fischl (1948)

'Barbeque', 1982

The American figurative painter depicts people, often in funny, lose, inappropriate situations. His imagery of American suburban life has a dark and disturbing undertone. "I grew up in the suburbs. There were no histories and no art" he said in a recent interview. Fischl lives and works in Long Island with his wife, landscape painter April Gornik.

Which one is your favorite from this list?

Talk to you soon, 

J.

PS: Images from WikiCommons (1-5, 9, 11), Creative Commons Zero (6,7,10,12,13) and mine (8).