Roman Kramsztyk
Roman Kramsztyk (18 August 1885 in Warsaw – 6 August 1942 in Warsaw) was a Polish realist painter of Jewish descent in the interwar period. He was shot dead in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.[1]
Life
Roman Kramsztyk was born as son of the physician Julian Kramsztyk (1851–1925) and grandson of reformed rabbi Izaak Kramsztyk (1814–1899). He studied painting at Kraków Academy of Fine Arts under Józef Mehoffer and in Warsaw in the private art school of Adolf Eduard Herstein, later at Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Between 1910 and 1914 he settled in Paris, during the First World War he lived in Warsaw and continued his study of painting at Adolf Eduard Herstein. Since 1922 he lived again in Paris, but visited Poland every year. During the 1939 visit he was surprised by the outbreak of the World War II and the German occupation of Poland. He was forced to go into Warsaw Ghetto. He was shot dead 1942 on a ghetto street by a soldier of the so-called Russian Liberation Army subordinated to the Nazi German high command.
Roman Kramsztyk's painting was influenced by the art of Paul Cézanne. He created portraits, nudes, still life and genre paintings. During his sojourn in the ghetto he created drawings showing the life of imprisoned Jews. Some of this drawings survived the war as thrilling documents of the Holocaust horror.
Portrait of Moïse Kisling, 1913
Portrait of Jan Lechoń, 1919
Portrait of Karol Szuster, 1927
Fig-tree harvest, 1921
Female nude
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References
- ↑ Roman Kramsztyk Biography (English) at Culture.pl
- Władysława Jaworska, Agnieszka Morawińska u.a., Malarstwo polskie w kolekcji Ewy i Wojciecha Fibakow (Polish painting in the Ewa and Wojtek Fibak Collection), Auriga, ISBN 83-221-0623-8, Warsaw 1992, page 140.