Abraham NEUMANN, City Landscape with Tree

oil, canvas, 48 x 55.5 cm, signed l.d.: A. Neumann.

Painter, considered the most outstanding Jewish landscape painter from the circle of Jan Stanislawski. He was initially educated at the Drawing School in Warsaw, and then, at the urging of Samuel Hirszenberg, went to study in Cracow, where at the Academy of Fine Arts there he was a student of J. Malczewski, L. Wyczółkowski and Jan Stanislawski (1892-1902). He continued his studies in Paris at the Académie Julian, and traveled to Holland, Belgium, England and Germany. He lived in Cracow, and from 1908-1913 in Zakopane. Undoubtedly, his first success was an exhibition of some 80 landscape sketches organized in 1903 at the Krywult Salon in Warsaw. Neumann's highly acclaimed landscapes are often views of villages near Krakow, Tatra landscapes, motifs from Brittany, Kazimierz on the Vistula, and Krakow. Particularly noteworthy are his early works, painted in broad free brushstrokes, with soft, muted colors.