William Henry Knight

The Finishing Touches

1856

Oil on canvas Canvas size: 29 x 38.5 inches Framed size: 36.5 x 46.25 inches Signed lower right

Oil on canvas Canvas size: 22 x 18 inches Framed size: 23.75 x 25 inches Signed lower left

Rare Judaica Art. Jewish genre scene. In the tradition of Moritz Oppenheim, Isidor Kauffman and Maurycy Gottlieb and later of Tully Filmus, Zalman Kleinman and Itshak Holtz the artist captures this Jewish scene with a particular sensitivity. Part of the Ecole De Paris The term "School of Paris" was used in 1925 by André Warnod (fr) to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris. School of Paris artists were progressively marginalized. Beginning in 1935 art publications no longer wrote about Marc Chagall, just magazines for Jewish audiences, and by June 1940 when the Vichy government took power, School of Paris artists could no longer exhibit in Paris at all. The artists working in Paris between World War I and World War II experimented with various styles including Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism and Dada. Foreign and French artists working in Paris included Jean Arp, Joan Miró, Constantin Brâncuși, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, artists from Belarus like Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, and Jacques Lipchitz, the Polish artist Marek Szwarc and others such as Russian-born prince Alexis Arapoff. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse. The "core members were almost all Jews, and the resentment expressed toward them by French critics in the 1930s was unquestionably fueled by anti-Semitism." One account points to the 1924 Salon des Indépendants, which decided to separate the works of French-born artists from those by immigrants; in response critic Roger Allard (fr) referred to them as the School of Paris. Jewish members of the group included Emmanuel Mané-Katz, Chaim Soutine, Adolphe Féder, Chagall, Moïse Kisling, Maxa Nordau...

"Pay Day" American Scene Social Realism WPA Era Mid 20th Century Modern Workers Don Freeman (1908-1978) Pay Day 20 x 30 inches Oil on board, c. 1940s Signed lower right BIO Illustr...