Simon Mondzain (Szamaj Mondszajn)
1890 - 1979

The son of a saddler, Simon Mondzain went to Warsaw in 1903/1904, where he was employed in a photographic studio, retouching photos. In 1905, he was imprisoned for having participated in a school strike and for his socialist sympathies. Thanks to the Dąbkowski family, he began studies at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts under Kazimierz Stabrowski. Granted a scholarship by the Jewish Commune, he left for Kraków in 1908, where he studied under Teodor Axentowicz and Józef Pankiewicz at the Academy of Fine Arts. In Pankiewicz's studio, Mondzain met Mojżesz Kisling, Jan Hrynkowski and Wacław Zawadowski, with whom he established lasting friendships. In 1909, he traveled to Paris, and in 1912 he settled there for good. He was on friendly terms with Amedeo Modigliani (who painted his portrait), Ossip Zadkine, a poet Max Jacob (he drew their portraits), André Derain and Othon Friesz. Shortly before World War I, for two and a half years he replaced the latter as a teacher at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere.

In early 1913, he traveled to Switzerland and spent his vacation at Doëlan in Brittany. Even though he was in Spain when World War I began, he returned to Poland in order to join the Foreign Legion, where he was assigned to the Polish detachment of light artillery. During the war, he sketched scenes from the trenches and portraits of his comrades in arms. Towards the end of 1919, he went to Chicago (via New York) where a one-man show of his work was organized. He remained and painted uninterrupted in the United States for almost one year. He corresponded with Elie Nadelman at that time. He then returned to Europe, subsequently making trips to southern France and Italy.

In 1923, he was granted French citizenship and became a member of the Salon des Tuileries. Two years later, he went for the first time to Algieria, where shortly thereafter he met Simonne, a physician, who became his wife. In 1933, they both settled permanently in Algiers, although the painter often visited Paris. After the outbreak of World War II, he co-organized a Polish Home in Algiers, gathering together Polish refugees from France under the Vichy government. He befriended men of letters and artists active in Algiers, meeting often with André Gide. He painted continuously, and received, among other things, a commission to decorate a school at Ben Aknoun with frescoes.

In 1945, he returned to Paris, but in the early 1950s again went to live in Algiers with his family. The Mondzains were caught by the war there, which resulted in Algieria's independence. They were forced to return to Paris in 1963. Prior to his death, the painter travelled to Holland to view an exhibition of Rembrandt, whom he considered as the greatest artistic genius.

Probably at the instigation of Józef Pankiewicz, Mondzain began his Parisian experience in the Louvre copying works by Eugčne Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. His early drawing studies distinguished themselves by an apt representation of the model expressed with a flexible line. His paintings, often landscapes, are characterized by Cézannesque tectonics, a not very rich palette of saturated hues and, above all, a concept of form inspired by André Derain's cubist compositions. The painter composed his landscape motifs by means of a schematic, hachured chiaroscuro and a straightforward, expressive drawing technique. His ex-Fauvist friends Derain and Othon Friesz became his masters.

Mondzain's allegorical compositions, which represent an important part of the artist's oeuvre, came to life on the chronological fringes of the World War I. Loneliness (Monk) from the Podl collection can be placed in this group. Their formal appearance was determined by their primitive expression and deformation as well as their moral or religious impact - by the selection of themes. Thus the Polish critic Edward Woroniecki, who rightly called Mondzain a "mystic and realist", wrote of his canvases: "In his paintings, ecstatic, sometimes deformed figures glowed with the light of stained-glass with a somber, deep gamut of pure tones. In this fervent and powerful primitivism, a desperate desire to break the ties of reality predominated over hope and faith" (see Woroniecki 1926; quoted in: Mondzain 1999).

Following the period of allegorical compositions, Mondzain moved closer to nature, contemplating in his new pictures the clarity found in the landscapes of Provence or Algeria. His palette became brighter and he returned to individualized faces in his figures. The dramatic tensions of his early figural scenes and landscapes softened in his later creations. The solidity of his workmanship, in combination with the realistic character of the late, thematically exotic paintings, which never coaxed the spectator, did not prevent the author from reverting, occasionally, to Biblical scenes (Flight to Egypt; late version of St. Francis).

Mondzain's one-man shows took place in: Chicago (1920), Paris (1922, 1923, 1926, 1927, 1931, 1934, 1937, 1950), Oran (1943) and Algiers (1948). His Polish debut occurred in 1908/1909, almost simultaneously in Kraków and Warsaw. He participated in group exhibitions of Polish art in Paris (1920, 1929) and New York (1933). In Paris, his debut took place at the Salon des Indépendents in 1911. From then on, he frequently exhibited his work at other salons. He also took part in group shows of French art, including those in Munich (1912), Pittsburgh (1923) and Tokyo (1926). In 1978, the exhibition "Mondzain et ses amis" was organized in Besançon. Following the artist's death, retrospective exhibitions took place in Aix-en-Provence (1983, together with an exhibition of the work of Wacław Zawadowski) and at the Polish Institute in Paris (1999). A slightly modified version of the last show entitled "Simon Mondzain and His Friends" (works by Jan Hrynkowski and Wacław Zawadowski were included), was organized by the Jewish Historical Institute and took place in Warsaw (1999) and Katowice (2000).

-- Artur Tanikowski

Works in the collection: