Zygmunt Menkes

Zygmunt Menkes was born in 1896 and died in 1986. He is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow (Wojciech Weiss' studio). In 1922 in Berlin, he met Alexander Archipenko, who had a great influence on his work. From 1923 associated with the circle of Parisian artists from École de Paris, a friend of e.g. E. Zak and M. Chagall. He has exhibited his paintings at the Fall, Independent and Tuileries Salons, and in many galleries in Paris. A frequent visitor in the country; member of the Nowa Generacja group from Lviv and the Association of Artists and Designers Zwornik from Krakow, participated in exhibitions in Lviv and Warsaw. From 1935 he lived in New York, cooperating with local art galleries and lectured at the Art Students League. He painted nudes, figural compositions, portraits, still lifes and landscapes, and after 1940 also pictures referring to the martyrdom of Jews. His painting underwent stylistic metamorphoses. In the early Paris period, he created expressionism and Fauvism, and after 1945 he limited the color palette, emphasized contours and texture, and then the geometrization of forms.