Pilikhovsky, Leopold

Pilikhovsky was born in Pyla in 1869. He spent his childhood in a Polish village, studied in heder and midrash . He received his first drawing lessons from the artist Samuel Girshenberg .

Then he received an excellent art education. First, in the Warsaw Drawing Class under the guidance of W. Gerson , (1886), then at the Munich Academy of Arts at S. Hollosi , and O. Zeitz (1887-1888). Later he continued his education at the Julian Academy in Paris . While in France, he also exhibited his paintings for the first time. In 1894, he had his first solo exhibition in Lodz. After graduation, he returned to Poland, lived in Lodz, in 1904 he moved to Paris, and in 1914 he settled in London, where he died in 1933.

The childhood memories and life in Lodz, one of the centers of Polish Jewry, gave L. Pilichowski the basic impressions that determined the nature of his work. The years of study abroad, his stay in Paris not only did not distract him from the initially outlined tasks, but, on the contrary, contributed to the identification of his personality. A school completed abroad gave him a technical skill, which he reveals mainly in a developed sense of composition, a bold interpretation and a sweeping, masterly brushstroke.

The peculiar in everyday life types of Jews that he sketched in his homeland do not serve as models for genre pictures, but are elements of creations that are significant in concept and wholeness of mood. So, on the canvas "Yom Kippur" the patriarchal figures of three praying Jews draped in tales are grouped with an amazing decorative tact. If not for the defect in lighting, this picture would be one of the best works of the artist. In a later interpretation of the same topic, L. Pilikhovsky gives a mass scene in the synagogue. He perfectly succeeded in characterizing the individuals in this picture, the general impression of prayerful pathos and some specific note of “Jewish grief” that gives his images something tragic. Even the most ordinary people buy from Π. special significance; for example, the typical figure of a Jewish junkler with a staff and a burden thrown over his shoulder grows at Pilikhovsky into a symbolic image of the eternal Jew (“Handel-Handel”). For L. Pilikhovsky there are no fun stories. In the picture "Wedding" fun and laughter are not visible; even the humorous speech of a wedding joker does not cause smiles. An expression of concentrated concern froze in mournful faces, in tired poses. This is best conveyed in the paintings "Tired Wanderers", "Where Peace", "Pending." However, nowhere else did monumentality and expression blend so harmoniously in his work as in the work Pietà exhibited at the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung (1911). Here the painter discovered the calm and expressiveness that characterize mature, completely mastered by his means creativity. Such a mature master, Pilikhovsky finds himself in the dreamy mood of the thing “In memory of Chopin” and in beautiful portraits, of which we will call the portrait of the violinist Kokhansky. In them, the artist’s desire for expressive simplicity, his deliberate disregard for the insignificant details that in his early portraits escaped with great care, became more and more obvious.

He painted oil paintings, realistic portraits, rural landscapes and genre paintings on Jewish subjects. He was a representative of Zionism and, together with S. Gishenberg , became one of the first artists in Poland who were looking for a Jewish national identity.

The artist’s creative heritage is the creation of frescoes in the building of the Main Post Office in Lodz .

L. Pilikhowski - a participant in many exhibitions, exhibited in Warsaw, Krakow and the Paris Salon .

Now the artist’s paintings are in the Jewish Museum in New York , the National Museum in Krakow , the Lodz Art Museum, and private collections.

• Pogrom victims
• Engagement,
• Praying jew
• Tired wanderers
• In thought
• Yom Kippur
• Sukkot Festival
• Leisure and others.

• Pilikhovsky, Leopold // Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron . - SPb. , 1908-1913.

• tytuł = Andrzem M. Kobos, Malarstwo polskich Żydów (Polish)