Work on paper bought in 1992 from the artist, origin private collection.
Technique: own ( watercolor, ink, gouache), dimensions: 35x 54 cm, signed.
Jan Lebenstein was born in 1930 in Brest-Litovsk, died in 1999 in Cracow. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1948-54) under Artur Nacht-Samborski. Jan Lebenstein's youth was a time of war, escape from his hometown, the tragic deaths of his father and brother and imprisonment. In 1956 he joined the Theater on Tarczynska Street, run in his own apartment by Miron Bialoszewski, and had his first solo exhibition there. At the age of 29, he received the Grand Prix at the First Biennale of the Young in Paris, where he settled and took French citizenship. In Poland, his work was only rediscovered after 1989.
Jan Lebenstein did not shy away from anecdote and narrative in his work, he was also sometimes an illustrator of literary works. He cultivated an original variety of figurative painting, incorporating surrealist and abstract elements into his compositions. He created cityscapes, poetic transpositions of the human figure and expressive fantasy-symbolic compositions. He was buried in the Powązki cemetery.
