Lot 2185 D

The history of Jewish culture in Western and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East in the first decades of the 20th century unfolds in an impressive way in Abel Pann's cosmopolitan life and work. Born in Belarus in 1883 as the son of a rabbi, Abel Pann first traveled through Russia and Poland before enrolling at the art academy in Odessa. In 1903 he went to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bourguereau. In Paris he also met other Jewish artists such as Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine. He moved to Jerusalem in 1913 to head the painting class at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. His depictions of the First World War and the illustrations of the Hebrew Bible are among Pann's best-known works.

This painting, created in Paris in 1910, shows a group of distinguished art lovers looking at a sculpture in an exhibition. It reflects the metropolitan art scene that the young artist found in the French capital, with its academies, exhibitions and salons. In his caricaturesque depiction of art lovers, Pann draws on 19th-century French examples such as Honoré Daumier.
A label on the back of the frame reads: “Encadrement & Restauration/SAMSON/Depuis 1864/29, rue Saint-Dominique Paris 7c”.

Abb. 1/Ill. 1: Portrait Abel Pann, 1912