Mané-Katz: The Jewish Heritage

Mané-Katz was one of the prominent artists of the Jewish School of Paris in the first half of the 20th century. Like many of the artists who came to Paris, he became engaged with modern art and its typical themes - landscape, still-life, interiors, portraiture and genre scenes. However, the core of his oeuvre is reserved for his experience of Jewish life, which is also central to this exhibition.

In his works, from the 1920s until his death in 1962, there are continuous and consistent depictions of the Jewish shtetl and its people. The paintings deal with Jewish ritual - prayer, reading and studying the Torah. He paints yeshiva students, a rabbi immersed in contemplation, the Rejoicing of the Law (Simchat Torah), Hassidic dance and song, Jewish weddings, and klezmer musicians. Mané-Katz returns to the sources, to the Book of Genesis and the tales of the forefathers, and paints subjects deriving from the Hebrew-Jewish myth. In his paintings, the Jewish reality is not that of everyday life, but of Torah and prayer, religious dedication and exaltation. The figures in his works are embodiments of the traditional Jewish spirit, forming a collective portrait, an archetype of orthodox and Hassidic Judaism.

From the late 1930s, during the Second World War and its aftermath, Mané-Katz tackled themes which expressed his feelings concerning the threat to the existence of the Jews of Europe and the horrors of the Holocaust. As an artist raised in a traditionally Jewish society that was obliterated during the war, he felt a pressing need to address these subjects. He depicted the victims of Nazi atrocities as well as the courage of the Jewish fighters, despair and the imminence of death alongside the prayer and hope that sustained the spirits of the rebels. At the same time, and with his characteristic optimism and joy of life, he portrayed the renewed Hebraic spirit in the Land of Israel.

Mané-Katz's paintings are expressionist in character - an artistic mode of the early 20th century which emphasizes the emotional power engendered by manipulations of color, distortions of form and space. Expressionism, deriving from the Jewish experience and great intensity of emotion, is evident in the painterly elements in his works.

Mané-Katz was a concerned and involved artist - an artist of Jewish life. He explored his Judaism and declared outright: "I am a Jewish artist and I am proud to bear this title." His Jewishness is present, explicit and conspicuous, without a trace of embarrassment or apology, and is the source of his artistic vitality.