Zygmunt Landau ( łódź 1898 – Tel-aviv 1962) Polish School - Still Life Hst Signed 65x53 Cm

Zygmunt LANDAU (Łódź 1898 – Tel-Aviv 1962) “Still life” Oil on canvas signed lower right 63 x 53 cm Zygmunt Landau, born in Łódź in 1898 and died in Tel-Aviv in June 1962, is a painter of the School of Paris from a Jewish family from Poland. Great-grandson and son of rabbis from Stryków, Zygmunt Landau studied with Henri Epstein, at the drawing school of Jakub Kacenbogen in Łódź, then entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in the studio of Stanislas Lentz. At the age of 18, he gave painting lessons. He arrived in Paris in 1920, settled in La Ruche near Soutine, Krémègne and Kikoine, frequented La Grande Chaumière, the Colarossi Academy, while maintaining links with Poland, where he returned in particular for exhibitions in Łódź and Warsaw. Having taken refuge during the Occupation in Saint-Tropez, he adopted Provence: the Provençal light exerted a profound influence on his very particular sense of colour. The world of his painting reflects calm and serenity: motionless figures in dreamy poses, maternity, women at the fountain, grape harvesters, gleaners, shepherds, very wise nudes, sleeping couples, scenes of patriarchal life, still lifes. This great sobriety is based on a graphic style concerned above all with lines of force and balance of masses which underline their fragility. The influence of Cézanne and Modigliani is very perceptible. At the end of the 1950s, he left for Israel where he continued to work: his last work was the stained glass window in the YMCA chapel in Tiberias.