Dość ważny obraz Leopolda Gottlieba z początków XX wieku przedstawiający malarza Leona Hirszenberga. Ciekawe jest w jaki sposób obraz ten trafił z bardzo znanej Ben Uri Collection na rynek (https://www.benuricollection.org.uk/). W tej kolekcji znajduje się obecnie tylko jeden obraz namalowany przez Leopolda Gottlieba. Zdumiewające dla mnie jest wyzbycie się tego obrazu lub może był jedynie w depozycie od 1930 roku(?). Może proweniencja tej pracy nie została dokładnie opisana. Należałoby zapytać p. Mielniczuka, eksperta tej aukcji.

Lot 30. Leopold GOTTLIEB (Ukraine 1883 – France 1934). Portrait of Leon Hirszenberg. Circa 1904-1907. Oil on canvas, 74,5 x 62 cm. Signed upper right “L. Gottlieb
Provenance:
Leopold Pilichowski Collection
Ben Uri Collection, 1930
Exhibition:
1930, Mansell Street Gallery Opening: Catalogue and Survey of Activities, Jewish Art and Literary Society Ben-Uri
1934, Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Jewish Artists, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery
1935, Israel Zangwill Memorial Exhibition, Ben Uri Jewish Art Gallery
1944, Opening Exhibition, Ben Uri Art Gallery
1945, Exhibition of Paintings by A. A. Wolmark (Konstam Collection), Dobrinsky Paris, and a selection of work from the Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Art Gallery
1946, Ben Uri Collection of Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Art Gallery
2009, Homeless & Hidden 1: World Class Collection Homeless & Hidden, Ben Uri Gallery
2016/17, Bracia Hirszenbergowie. W poszukiwaniu ziemi obiecanej/Hirszenberg Brothers. In search of the Promised Land, Museum of the City of Lodz, Lodz; Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

Bibliography:
Walter Schwabe and Julia Weiner, eds, Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection – Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), reproduced p. 48
Bracia Hirszenbergowie. W poszukiwaniu ziemi obiecanej/Hirszenberg Brothers. In search of the Promised Land (Lodz, Warsaw: Muzeum miasta Lodzi and Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, 2017), p. 93
The Ben Uri Gallery and Museum in London holds one of the most important collections of works by immigrant artists of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries in the United Kingdom and the international museum sector.
Emerging from and representing the Jewish community, the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum’s collection primarily reflects the work, lives and contributions of British and European artists of Jewish origin, interpreted within the broader context of 20th and 21st century art history, politics and society.
The funds raised will be reinvested to finance new acquisitions and to strengthen the museum’s research unit.

Various subjects are represented in the work of Leopold Gottlieb (1879 Drohobycz – 1934 Paris). There are figurative scenes, religious scenes and landscapes. But it is in the portrait that the artist excels. After studying art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow and in Munich, Gottlieb went to Paris for the first time in 1904. He returned in 1908 and remained there for many years. It was during this period that he painted powerful effigies of prominent figures in the artistic and intellectual life of the French capital: the writer André Gide, the poet André Salmon and the sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti. The painter was also involved in the life of the Polish artist colony in Paris. Befriended by many of them, he often painted their portraits, such as the sculptor Xawery Dunikowski or the painter Mieczysław Jakimowicz. The striking portrait of another of his compatriots, the painter Leon Hirszenberg, which we present here was painted around 1904. We do not know exactly how Leon and Leopold met, but their Jewish background certainly brought them together. They were part of a larger circle that included the sculptor Elie Nadelman and the painter Mela Muter. Their works also met in the columns of the Polish art magazine “Sztuka” [Art] published in Paris by Antoni Potocki. In issues 8-9 of this magazine, a reproduction of Hirszenberg’s painting (From Brittany) is displayed alongside portraits painted by Gottlieb.

Léon (Lajbuś) Hirszenberg (Herszenberg) born in 1869 in Łódź and died in 1945 in Paris, came, like Gottlieb, from a family of artists. He was the younger brother of Samuel, also a painter, dedicated to themes related to the Jewish diaspora, and elder to Henryk (Izrael Hersz), an architect. Leon’s life is still a secret. He studied painting either with his brother Samuel or in Munich around 1890. He was present in Paris from 1902. His work testifies to his attachment to Brittany, where he made several trips, notably to Concarneau and probably lived in Perros Guirec. He exhibited at art shows in the capital as well as in Poland. Having become blind at the end of the 1920s, he was no longer active as an artist.
Léon made his debut in Paris at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1904 and was noticed by French and Polish critics. His portrait by a renowned Polish painter, Olga Boznańska, was presented at the same salon and met with a lively

Estimate 50,000 -60,000 euro. Millon. 11/29/22. Sold 44,000 euro