Abraham Neumann (Poland, 1873-1942) - Landscape, Oil on Canvas, 1937.

Abraham Neumann (Poland, 1873-1942) - Landscape, Oil on Canvas, 1937.

Abraham Neumann (Polish, 1873-1942) - Landscape, Oil on Canvas, 1937.

Signed and dated.

45x60cm.

Abraham Neumann was a Jewish-Polish painter and graphic artist, who was murdered by the Nazis.

Neumann was born in the city of Sherpatz , in a Jewish family. His father was an official of the forest administration. After graduating from high school, he earned money in Warsaw by enlarging and coloring portraits from photographs, and attended the School of Painting. He began his studies in 1897 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow under the direction of Jacek Malczewski. He studied, among other things, in the studio of Jan Stanislavski.

In 1900 he spent several months in Paris. Among other things, in classes at the Julien Academy he got to know the museum collections, visited the World Exhibition and copied paintings in the Louvre Museum. On his way back home he visited England, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

After completing his studies, Neumann settled permanently in Krakow, then moved to Zakopane. He traveled a lot, including to the United States, twice in the Land of Israel (1904, 1926-1927), where he lectured at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

Neumann was a prolific artist who specialized especially in landscape paintings. He is considered one of the prominent representatives of the so-called Landscape School of Stanislavski. After his stay in the Land of Israel, the subject of his work was enriched in Middle Eastern issues (especially from an architectural point of view). He also painted still lifes, flowers and portraits. His works consist of paintings of landscapes from the Tatras , Kazimierz Dolny, Brittany and Palestine.

He was the first Jewish painter from Poland to travel to Israel in 1904, and also the first to encounter the challenges posed to painting there, including the different type of light. He struggled to solve these problems for a long time, and on his second trip to Israel, local issues became permanent features in his work.

He belonged to the Krakow branch of the Polish Union of Artists and the Union of Jewish Painters and Sculptors in Krakow. He participated in Stukka Association exhibitions, held personal exhibitions in Krakow and Lviv in Warsaw, Lodz and Berlin. He also participated in the Vienna Secession exhibitions and in 1916 participated in the Jewish art exhibitions in Warsaw.

He became friends with many leading artists at the beginning of the 20th century, such as Raphael Malczewski (son of Jacek Melczewski) and Leon Chavistek.

In 1942 Avraham Neuman was put into the Krakow ghetto . On June 4, 1942, he was shot and killed by the Germans at the corner of Dbrowki and Genova Walla streets on his way to the transport that was taking the Jews of Krakow to the extermination camp in Belzec. Mordechai Gvirtig was also shot in the group.