Adolf Behrmann „Meknes”, 1934

Oil on cardboard, signed, described and dated lower left "Behrmann Meknes 34”.

Framed: 55x65 cm (38x48 cm)

Adolf Behrmann (Abraham Berman) (Tukumsa 1876 - 1943 Białystok) was a painter of interwar Poland best known for his outdoor paintings of Jewish shtetl life as well as landscapes and group portraits. He spent most of his life in Łódź and died during the liquidation of the Białystok Ghetto in the Holocaust. Behrman's place of birth is uncertain. Adolf studied art under Jakub Kacenbogen at his private Drawing School in Łódź before the 1900s. He continued his studies in Munich in 1900–1904, first privately, then at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich under Gabriel von Hackl. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Behrman's first commercial success was the selling of a series of paintings and drawings to an arts' collector in Łódź in 1905 which enabled him to travel to Paris. He lived there, studied at the Academy and worked for the next five years. From 1924 to 1927, Behrman traveled to Palestine, Egypt and later Morocco. His landscapes originating from that period have become the most known part of his work. Behrman's palette became brighter in that period with the introduction of impressionist tones. In the 1930s, he returned to Poland and went to Kazimierz Dolny for the first time. There, he created one of his most important works, Interior of the Synagogue in Kazimierz Dolny. Behrman was a painter of scenes from daily life of the Polish Jews and views of Jewish quarters. Many of Behrman's paintings were destroyed in World War II. Some of his paintings can be found at the Historical Museum of Kraków and at the Łódź Museum.