Zdzislaw Lachur, From the series "Judaica", 2001

57.0 x 52.5cm - gouache, ink, paper glued on plywood

signed l.d.: Z LACHUR

signed on reverse: Z CYKLU | - JUDAICA | mal. Z LACHUR | 2001

Zdzislaw Lachur studied painting and printmaking from 1945 to 1950 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow under the direction of Professor Eugeniusz Eibisch. At the same time he co-founded a film studio in Katowice, at first dealing with animated films and propaganda posters, in 1947 transformed into the Experimental Drawing Film Studio in Bielsko-Biała, which exists to this day. In 1955, he took part in the Exhibition of Young Visual Arts at the Warsaw Arsenal, presenting paintings and drawings on Jewish and occupation themes. These themes dominate his work from then on. Depictions of the Holocaust, fighting in the Warsaw Ghetto, as well as characteristic ritual motifs and Jewish types make up a large series of expressive, dramatic paintings and drawings. The artist's interests also included biblical motifs, and since the 1980s also themes from the life of Christ, Mary, the apostles. At the same time, he took up subjects such as dynamic images of horses and social problems such as alcoholism and prostitution. The artist has exhibited extensively, his work is represented in numerous museums, especially those related to the memory of war and the Holocaust, such as the Jewish Historical Institute and the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, the Haifa Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Holocaust Museum in Paris. In 1979, he was awarded the Yad Vashem Institute medal "in recognition of his painting work dedicated to the Jewish people." Since the late 1990s, the artist has limited his participation in artistic and public life.