Benn Bencion Rabinowicz (1905, Białystok – 1989, Paris), Portrait of Ghera, the Painter’s Wife

Provenance
Tajan Auction House, Paris, September 2021
private collection, Poland

Biography
From 1926 to 1930, he worked as a theater set designer. In 1927, he held his first exhibition in Białystok; beginning in 1928, he exhibited in Warsaw. In 1929, he received a three-year scholarship to study in Paris, where he attended Fernand Léger’s studio starting in 1930. He settled permanently in Paris, becoming a French citizen. He was a key figure in the broad international Ecole de Paris movement of the interwar period. He remained faithful to figurative art with a tendency toward geometric stylization. During World War II, he and his wife were imprisoned in a transit camp; he avoided deportation thanks to the help of Jean Paulhen, who hid him until the end of the war.