Maurycy Gottlieb was a Jewish painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, of Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

-speaking Galician Jews

Galician Jews

Galician Jews or Galitzianer Jews are a subdivision of the Ashkenazim geographically originating from Galicia, from western Ukraine and from the south-eastern corner of Poland . Galicia proper, which was inhabited by Ukrainians, Poles and Jews, was a royal province within Austro-Hungarian empire...

 from the western part of Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

. He was born in Drohobych

Drohobych

Drohobych is a city located at the confluence of the Tysmenytsia River and Seret, a tributary of the former, in the Lviv Oblast , in western Ukraine...

 (at that time Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

), Galicia, modern Lviv region, western Ukraine.

Maurycy was one of Isaac and Fanya Tigerman Gottlieb's eleven children. At fifteen, he was enrolled at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is an institution of higher education in Vienna, Austria.- History :The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy by the court-painter Peter Strudl, who became the Praefectus Academiae Nostrae. In 1701 he was ennobled as Baron of the Empire...

. Later, he would study under Jan Matejko

Jan Matejko

Jan Matejko was a Polish painter known for paintings of notable historical Polish political and military events. His most famous works include oil on canvas paintings like Battle of Grunwald, paintings of numerous other battles and court scenes, and a gallery of Polish kings...

 in Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

. However, he experienced anti-semitism from his fellow students, and left Matejko's studio after less than a year, he then traveled to Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 settling in Molde

Molde

is a city and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Romsdal region. The municipality is located on the Romsdal Peninsula, surrounding the Fannefjord and Moldefjord...

. After several years he returned to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to pursue his Jewish roots.

At twenty, he won a gold medal from a Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 art competition for Shylock and Jessica (at right), showing a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...

. He based Jessica's face on that of Laura Rosenfeld, to whom he had proposed marriage. However, Rosenfeld rejected his proposal, and wed a Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 banker. Gottlieb then planned to marry Lola Rosengarten, but when he heard about Rosenfeld's marriage he committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 by exposure to the elements, dying of complications from a cold.

Despite his early death, more than three hundred of his works survive, though not all are finished. After the fall of the Iron Curtain

Iron Curtain

The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...

, many Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 collections unknown in the West

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

 were discovered, and his reputation grew greatly.

His brother, painter Leopold Gottlieb

Leopold Gottlieb

Leopold Gottlieb was a Jewish-Polish painter. His brother, painter Maurycy Gottlieb, died before Leopold was born.-Early Life & Education:...

, was born five years after his death.

Books

• Nehama Guralnik: In the Flower of Youth: Maurycy Gottlieb. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Dvir Publishers, 1991.
• Jerzy Malinowski: Maurycy Gottlieb. Arkady, Warsaw (1997), ISBN 83-213-3891-7
• Ezra Mendelsohn: Painting a people: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art. Brandeis University Press, Hanover, New Hampshire; ISBN 1584651792 (2002)

External links

• Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur in Poem for Rent
  Poem for Rent
  Poem for Rent is a nonprofit project for arts distribution. This is done mainly by posting poems on bulletin boards, in the same format like standard "house for rent" posts, with several detachable tear-offs in the bottom. One difference is that instead of a telephone number, quotes from the poem...
  
   project.
• Biography of Maurycy Gottlieb
• http://www.bh.org.il/Names/POW/Gottlieb.asp