Abraham Wolf Mendelson
The portrait of a young man is built with triangular and quadrangular elements arranged in varying, restless rhythms. Sharply cut geometrical figures treated with chiaroscuro give the composition dynamics and make the two-dimensional portrait ripple. A perspective view of space is given by three sharp triangles placed to the left; they support as much as they pierce the face of the man.
Who is this character full of melancholy and doubt that can break into pieces like a mirror at any moment? Was he forged in ice, or rather sewn from fabric, left in a poor paternal tailor's workshop?
Abraham Wolf Mendelson (1913–1942/1943) came from an orthodox Lublin family. Though his father was a poor Jewish tailor, he opposed the Judaic tradition in which he grew up and chose an artist's profession.
The way of presenting the figure of a young man in a cubist portrait with strong chiaroscuro is pure Mendelson. Instead of a Portrait of a Man, though, it is in reality a self-portrait in which the artist reflected the condition of the second generation of Jewish artists in Poland, torn between the heritage of Judaism and European avant-garde tendencies. The resistance that a closed solid puts on a two-dimensional surface of a drawing is an expression of a conflict of identity stretched between tradition and acculturation; it refers us to Erich Fromm’s freedom from and freedom to.
We present today's drawing thanks to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. We invite you to have a look at the collections of Jewish artists on the Delet Portal website (delet.jhi.pl).
- Zuzanna Benesz-Goldfinger, JHI Art Department
P.S. See the amazing colors in the paintings of a Jewish-Indian contemporary artist Siona Benjamin here!