(b Kremenchug, Ukraine, 5 June 1894; d Tel Aviv, 9 Sept 1962). French painter and sculptor of Ukrainian birth. He came from an orthodox Jewish family; his father was sexton of a synagogue, and he was originally intended to become a rabbi. After studying at the School of Fine Arts in Kiev, he visited Paris for the first time in 1913 and enrolled in Fernand Cormon’s class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where his fellow students included Chaïm Soutine. He was influenced by Rembrandt, by the Fauves (especially Derain) and, briefly, by Cubism.
