Sigmund Joseph MENKES (1896-1986), Woman in front of the mirror

Sigmund Joseph (Sigmund, Sigmond) MENKES (1896-1986), Woman in front of a mirror
watercolor, gouache, paper
36 x 50 cm
signed p.d. Menkes

Zygmunt Menkes began his study of painting under Kazimierz Sichulski at the Lviv School of Art Industry. Then, between 1919 and 1922, he studied under Wojciech Weiss at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 1922 he went to Berlin, where he met Alexander Archipenko and benefited from his guidance. Since 1923, he was permanently in Paris. Associated with the École de Paris circle of artists, he was friends with, among others, E. Zak and M. Chagall. He participated in the Autumn, Independent and Tuileries Salons, and exhibited in many Parisian galleries. He often traveled to Poland; he was a member of the New Generation grouping in Lviv and the Zwornik Association of Artists in Cracow, and participated in exhibitions in Lviv and Warsaw. He traveled extensively, including in 1928 he was in Berlin, and in 1935 in Spain (together with A. Nacht-Samborski). In 1935 he went to New York, where he settled permanently and where he had a solo exhibition in 1936. Over the years he worked with art galleries there and taught at the Art Students League. He painted portraits, nudes, figurative compositions, still lifes and landscapes, and after 1940 also paintings referring to the martyrdom of the Jews. His painting underwent various stylistic transformations. In the Paris period, his paintings were close to the currents of Expressionism and Fauvism. In the post-war period, he limited his colors, introduced a strong contour line, rich texture and, with time, an increasingly pronounced geometrization of forms.