David Djinzerski [1913-1980] was born in Lodz to a Chareidi family.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, David was drafted into the Polish Army and taken into German captivity. He miraculously succeeded in escaping to Russia. After the war, he discovered that his mother had died of hunger in the ghetto, but his father, sisters and brother miraculously remained alive. He immigrated to Israel in 1949. In Djinzerski’s paintings, the motif of Jewish life before the war is emphasized. He never formally studied painting, which is clearly evident in his paintings, in the somewhat naive technique with which he paints. People are distorted, not entirely proportional to the size of the buildings. This also stems from the fact that he attempted to paint a child’s viewpoint, with the world looming over him. Djinzerski also painted a series of paintings depicting life in the ghettos and camps. In contrast to his earlier paintings which were put up for sale through us, and mainly dealt with life before the war and painted in happy yellow tones, this painting deals with Jewish life during the war, depicting a close-up of the figure, and its general tones are more melancholy.
David was particular not to paint from photographs, and said that he painted his paintings from memory only. His paintings were exposed to the general public only in his later years, in an exhibition which took place at Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv, and in various places in the United States. He passed away in Brooklyn at the age of 67.
Signed by the artist, surname and year painted.
Provenance: Estate of the artist’s family.
Oil on plywood.
Size: 34×24 cm.
The painting is placed in a wooden frame.
Very fine condition.