Isaac Lichtenstein Portrait Paintings

Framed 26 x 13 image 20 x 6.5 inches. YITSKHOK LIKHTENSHTEYN (ISAAC LICHTENSTEIN) (1888-1981) (Icchok, Izrael) was born in Lodz, Poland. Initially he was studying at Yehuda Pen school in Witebsk. In the same school where young Marc Chagall started to paint his shtetl Jews, Jewish neighbourhoods and personages. As many young Jewish children who decided painting to be their passion Isaac moved to Paris where he was one of the co-founders of Machmadim - a group of Jewish artists (mostly émigré from Eastern Europe) who dedicated their art to traditional Jewish themes. Later Isaac Lichtenstein studied with Boris Schatz and painted at Bezalel, Jerusalem. Until age seven he was raised in Warsaw; later, when his father received a position with Poznański, he lived with his parents in Lodz. There he studied in a state public school. He demonstrated talent for painting while still quite young, and in 1906 he began to attend the Cracow art academy, before going on to study painting in Rome, Florence, and Munich. In 1908 he entered the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem. In 1910 he returned to Cracow, lived for a short time in Munich, 1911 in Paris, 1912-1913 again in the land of Israel, and in 1914 he returned to Paris, that very year setting off for the United States. He lived in New York during WWI, where he became part of Jewish literary and artistic circles, and contributed as a graphic artist to a variety of Jewish publications, among them: M. Basin’s Antologye (Anthology), the collection Velt ayn, velt oys (World in, world out), and designed frontispieces, little vignettes, and letters for Yiddish-language books. In 1916 he also began to write and published articles on the plastic arts in: Tsukunft (Future) in New York; the collection Shriften (Writings), vol. 6; Onheyb (Beginning), edited by Z. Vaynper; Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal); Der amerikaner (The American); Forverts (Forward); and Di tsayt (The times). He did journalistic work also for M. F. Seidman’s correspondence bureau in New York. In 1918 he departed with the Jewish Legion for Israel. In 1920 he came to London, was demobilized there, and was a contributor to the journal Renesans (Renaissance), edited by Leo Kenig, and to the daily newspaper Di tsayt, edited by Morris Meyer. In 1924 he returned to Poland, exhibited his drawings in Warsaw, Lodz, Vilna, and other cities, gave speeches on art (general and Jewish), and published work in: Haynt (Today), Moment (Moment), Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper), and Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves)—in Warsaw; Unzer lebn (Our life) in Grodno; Voliner lebn (Volhynia life); Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Lodz; and elsewhere. He also published impressions from his travels and memoirs of the Jewish Legion in Haynt. He was part of the loose association of émigré artists known collectively as the École de Paris, the majority (among them Marc Chagall, Isaac Dobrinksy, Henri Epstein...