Szymon (Szamaj) Mondzain (Mondszajn) (1890, Chełm – 1979, Paris), Still Life, ca. 1927

Provenance
private collection, Poland

Biography
He studied art from 1906 to 1908 at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts under the guidance of Kazimierz Stabrowski. He continued his studies from 1909 to 1912 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in the studios of Teodor Axentowicz and Józef Pankiewicz. He exhibited his works for the first time in 1908 at the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw. In 1909 and 1911, he traveled to Paris, where he settled permanently in 1912 and completed his studies in André Derain’s studio. He painted en plein air in Brittany and Spain. He participated numerous times in the Parisian Salons des Indépendants, Salon d’Automne, and Salon des Tuileries. Solo exhibitions of his paintings were held at the Fine Arts Club in Chicago (1920), the Galerie Hodebert (1926), and the Salon des Tuileries (1931) in Paris. Beginning in 1925, he visited Algeria on numerous occasions, where he lived through World War II. He returned to Paris in 1965. He painted landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and seascapes.