Moses Kisling, PORTRAIT OF A RED-HAIRED WOMAN

22.0 x 14.5cm - crayons, pencil, paper signed p.d. (in pencil): Kisling
On the back, on the so-called "backing", sticker (marker, pen): KISLING 110 | [...] | CC 22 x 15 | 1G.



Reproduced and exhibited painting:
- J. Dutourd and J. Kisling, Kisling, Tome III, 1995, cat. no. 162, ill. s. 159;

- Paris Was a Woman, Walbrzych Art Gallery BWA (Książ Castle), 16 X 2021 - 9 I 2022;

- A. Winiarski, Paris Was a Woman, Exhibition from the collection of Mark Roefler / Villa la Fleur Museum, Walbrzych 2021, p. 12.

Moses Kisling studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow with Jozef Pankiewicz in 1907-1911. On his advice, together with Szymon Mondszajn, he left for further studies in Paris. There the critics André Salmon and Adolf Basler became interested in his work, and he also received a scholarship from an anonymous patron from Russia. During World War I, he fought in the Foreign Legion. He was wounded while fighting at the front, and was discharged from the army in 1915. Probably then he received French citizenship. From about 1920 he began to spend summers steadily in Sanary-sur-Mer, where he bought a house. He also maintained contacts with the country. During World War II, he joined the French army. In 1940, via Spain and Portugal, he went to New York. After the war, around 1946, he returned to Sanary-sur-Mer. He was one of the most prominent representatives of the Ecole de Paris of the interwar years. He had many solo exhibitions, and often participated in group exhibitions abroad as a Polish artist. He also participated in domestic artistic life, including the First Exhibition of Polish Expressionists (later Formists), Krakow 1917. He was friends with Tadeusz Makowski. In his early period he painted cubic landscapes and still lifes. Portraits were a constant theme in his painting, including numerous likenesses of artists, critics and people from artistic circles, making him a chronicler of the Ecole de Paris socialite. His portraits of women and nudes are characterized by a special stylization, with idealized faces with big eyes, assuming studied poses.