Maurycy Gottlieb

Gottlieb was born in Drohobycz (then in Galicia in Austrian Poland, now in western Ukraine) to a wealthy, Yiddish and Polish-speaking Orthodox Jewish family. He was one of eleven children born to Fanya (née Tigerman) and Isaac Gottlieb. He was introduced to painting in Lemberg by Michał Godlewski. At fifteen, he enrolled at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy for three years. In 1873, he went to Kraków to study under Jan Matejko and became close friends with Jacek Malczewski. However, an anti-Semitic incident at the School of Fine Arts prompted him to leave Kraków after less than a year in spite of Malczewski's protests. He traveled to Norway and stayed in Molde. He returned to Vienna and from there travelled to Munich in 1875 to study under Karl von Piloty and Alexander von Wagner. In 1876, he won the gold medal at the Munich Academy for his painting, Shylock and Jessica. In the same year, he moved back to Vienna to attend the workshop of Heinrich von Angeli. He lived and worked in Vienna for the next two years and produced paintings with biblical themes, as well as illustrations for Friedrich Bruckmann Publishing of Munich.

In fall 1878, Gottlieb travelled to Rome, where he befriended Henryk Siemiradzki. At a banquet in his residence at Via Gaeta, Gottlieb met with Matejko, who convinced him to come back to Kraków as one of his best students,{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Maurycy (Moses) Gottlieb, Drohobycz 1856 – Kraków 1879|trans-title=Maurice (Moses) Gottlieb, Drohobycz 1856 – Cracow 1879|url=http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl/Gottlieb_M/Gottlieb_M_bio.htm|archive-url=|archive-date=|accessdate=19 November 2012|website=|publisher=Pinakoteka Zascianek.pl|language=Polish}} to work on a series of monumental paintings including scenes from the history of the Jews in Poland.

In 1879, Gottlieb settled in Kraków and began working on his new major project.{{cite web | url=http://www.culture.pl/baza-sztuki-pelna-tresc/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/eAN5/content/maurycy-gottlieb | title=Maurycy Gottlieb | publisher=Adam Mickiewicz Institute Culture.pl | accessdate=19 November 2012 | author=Ewa Micke-Broniarek | language=Polish}} He died in the same year from health complications. Matejko attended his funeral and promised his father to look after his younger brother Marcin.{{citation | title=See: Letter of Maurycy's father, Isak Gottlieb, in Der Israelit, No. 15, 8 August, 1879 | publisher=Central European University. Public Lecture Series.| author=Ezra Mendelsohn | work=Art and Jewish–Polish Relations: Matejko and Gottlieb at the National Museum in Warsaw}}

Gottlieb won a gold medal at the Munich art competition for his painting, Shylock and Jessica (1876), portraying a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The painting was exhibited in Lviv in 1877, and in 1878 at Zachęta in Warsaw and widely acclaimed. Gottlieb based Jessica's face on that of Laura Rosenfeld, to whom he had proposed marriage. However, Laura rejected his proposal and wed a Berlin banker. Gottlieb planned to marry Lola Rosengarten, but when he heard about Rosenfeld's marriage, he knowingly exposed himself to the elements, dying of complications from a cold and sore throat.Erik Weems, [http://eeweems.com/maurycy_gottlieb/ Biography of Maurycy Gottlieb] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041216230124/http://eeweems.com/maurycy_gottlieb/ |date=16 December 2004 }} at Eeweems.com, Richmond VA. Retrieved 19 November 2012

Despite his premature death at the age of 23, more than three hundred of his works survive (mostly sketches, but also oil paintings),{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Gottlieb, Maurycy|trans-title=Gottlieb, Maurice|url=http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/32979,haslo.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060117095603/http://portalwiedzy.onet.pl/32979,haslo.html|archive-date=17 January 2006|accessdate=23 November 2012|work=Malarstwo, Europa|publisher=Encyklopedia WIEM|language=Polish}} though not all are finished. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, many Polish collections unknown in the Western Bloc were popularized, and his reputation grew greatly. His brother, Leopold Gottlieb, was born five years after his death and became known as a painter as an adult.

File:Gottlieb Recha welcoming her father.jpg|Recha welcoming her father, 1867–1877, National Museum of Warsaw

File:Shylock e jessica.jpeg|Shylock and Jessica, 1876

File:Maurycy Gottlieb - Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.jpg|Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, 1878, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

File:Maurycy Gottlieb, Chrystus nauczający w Kafarnaum.jpg|Christ Preaching at Capernaum, 1879 (Warsaw)

{{Reflist}}

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• {{cite encyclopedia | last = Małaszewska | first = Wanda | editor = Jane Turner | encyclopedia = The Dictionary of Art | title = Gottlieb, Maurycy | year = 1996 | publisher = Macmillan Publishers Limited | volume = 13 | isbn = 1-884446-00-0 | pages = 215–6}}
• Nehama Guralnik: In the Flower of Youth: Maurycy Gottlieb. Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Dvir Publishers, 1991.
• Jerzy Malinowski: Maurycy Gottlieb. Arkady, Warsaw (1997), {{ISBN|83-213-3891-7}}
• Ezra Mendelsohn: Painting a people: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art. Brandeis University Press, Hanover, New Hampshire; {{ISBN|1-58465-179-2}} (2002)

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070926175956/http://www.technion.ac.il/~gever/tkipur.jpg Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur], in Poem for Rent project.
• Głowa starca – oil painting by Gottlieb in [http://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/589838/0/ Central Jewish Library]

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Category:19th-century Polish painters

Category:19th-century Polish male artists

Category:Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe)

Category:Jewish painters

Category:Jewish Polish artists

Category:Artists from Kraków

Category:1856 births

Category:1879 deaths

Category:Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni

Category:People from Drohobych

Category:Polish male painters

Category:Painters from Austria-Hungary