Henryk Epstein (1891 Lodz - 1944 Auschwitz), In the harbor, 1930.

oil, canvas, 16.5 × 27 cm
Signed and dated l. d.: "H.Epstein/1930"

"The individual paintings resemble separate organisms living an intense life. Planes vibrating and trembling. Colors whose task is not to create colorful arabesques, but to enliven the matter depicted on the two-dimensional canvas, thus applying visual fiction. The cardinal virtue of the artist in question is the ability to create the illusion that the depicted figures are alive and working. Which is not to say that Henry Epstein aims at figurative art. The artist does not aim to convey or communicate his feelings, his visual experience. His goal is different. The painter seeks to bring to life figures whose shapes and outward appearance resemble ordinary people, equipping them with a new soul, a product of his imagination, his property."
W. George, The School of Paris, [in:] C. Roth, Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, Tel Aviv 1961, p. 709.