Scenes from the Lodge ghetto. David Djinzerski [1913-1980]

Scenes from the Lodge ghetto. David Djinzerski [1913-1980]

Oil on Canvas. Signed on the lower left.

28X33 cm. Placed in a wooden frame. Very fine condition.

David Djinzerski [1913-1980] was a native of Lodz, born to a Chareidi family. When the Nazis invaded Poland, he was drafted into the Polish Army, and taken into German captivity. He miraculously succeeded in escaping to Russia. After the war, he discovered that his mother had died of hunger in the ghetto, but his father, sisters and brother miraculously remained alive. He immigrated to Israel in 1949. In Djinzerski's paintings, the motif of Jewish life in Lodz before the war is emphasized. He never formally studied painting, which is clearly evident in his paintings, in the somewhat naive technique with which he paints. People are distorted, not entirely proportional to the size of the buildings. This also stems from the fact that he attempted to paint a child's viewpoint, with the world looming over him. In addition to these paintings, Djinzerski also painted series of paintings of life in the ghettos and in the camps. In contrast to his earlier paintings which were for sale through us, which dealt with life before the war, and were painted in cheerful yellow tones, this painting is about Jews during the war; it is a close-up of a figure in more melancholy shades.

David was particular not to paint from photographs, and said that he painted his paintings from his memory only. His paintings were exposed to the general public only in his later years, in an exhibition which took place at Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv, and in various places in the United States. He passed away in Brooklyn at the age of 67.