#ExtraordinaryStories | École de Paris 1905 - 1939, The Jewish Artists

The story of Ecole de Paris - film by Aleh Lukashevich

Samuel Granowsky - The Cowboy of Montparnasse

Samuel Granowsky left his family to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Odessa. He continued his training in Munich and in Paris, where he settled in 1909. He was a tall and handsome man, and worked as a “model” at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere. He also earned his living by working as a cleaner at the café La Rotonde. Read more...

Ossip Lubitch - Contemplator of life, Film by Aleh Lukashevich.

Ossip Lubitch was born into a family of blacksmiths. He spent his youth in Odessa, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts for four years. In 1919, he moved to Berlin with a group of Russian artists including Pavel Tchelitchev, Jean Pougny, and Lazare Meerson , with whom he produced theater and film sets. Read more...

Michel Kikoine - A poetic world on canvas, Film by Aleh Lukashevich.

Michel Kikoine’s parents settled in Rejitsa, a small town near Vitebsk, shortly after the birth of their son Michel. His mother’s father was a rabbi, and his father Peretz Kikoine worked in a bank. In 1904, the Kikoine family moved to Minsk, where Michel studied business for three years, and met Soutine who was then working as an apprentice tailor. In 1908, Soutine and Kikoine attended Kruger’s Art Academy and later the School of Fine Arts in Vilnius, where they met Krémegne. Read more...

Chaim Soutine - Thirst for color, Film by Aleh Lukashevich.

Chaim Soutine was born in 1893 in Smilovichi, a small town twenty kilometers from Minsk, mostly inhabited by very religious Jews. His father was a tailor. He was second last in a family of eleven children. He started to draw at a very young age. When he was thirteen, he secretly drew the portrait of the village rabbi, thus transgressing the prohibition to represent the human face. Read more...

Marc Chagall - The Color of Love, Film by Aleh Lukashevich.

Marc Chagall was the oldest in a family of nine children. He grew up in a modest family, in a shtetl in Belarus, surrounded by religious traditions and culture. From 1906, he studied painting in his hometown at Yehuda Pen’s studio. The latter was a Jewish painter who taught him the fundamentals of art. In 1907, he left for Saint Petersburg and enrolled in the Imperial School for the Encouragement of the Arts. Read more...

Faibich-Schraga Zarfin - Radiance of Color, Film by Aleh Lukashevich.

Zarfin was born into a family of intellectuals and grew up in Smilovichi, near Minsk. In 1913, he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Vilnius and wrote poems. In 1914, influenced by the Zionist wave, he left his country and family, who he never saw again, and emmigrated to Palestine. Read more...