PRESSMANE Joseph

Joseph PRESSMANE (born 22 July 1904 in Berestechko, Ukraine) is a Franco-Ukrainian painter and engraver from the École de Paris.

Joseph Pressmane studied at the School of Fine Arts in Lviv and Warsaw before embarking in 1925 for a great trip to Palestine. A personal exhibition dedicated to him in Jerusalem in 1925

In 1927 he arrived in Paris where he wanted to see "des Cézanne". It was much more to look at the works of others than to expose myself," he confirmed. A French naturalist, he worked at the Ranson Academy with Roger Bissière and embroiled French masters whom he visited every Sunday at the Louvre. In 1932 he met Leopold Zborowski, who bought several paintings. The 1930s, however, was a time of great insecurity which forced him to work as a painter in construction.

Throughout the Second World War, tracked by the Germans, Joseph Pressmane remained hidden in the cellars, closets and W.C. on the Boulevard de Port-Royal, deceiving physical and moral suffering by drawing and reading Plato. He resumed painting at the Liberation, participating in exhibitions until the early 1960s. In addition to his landscapes, still lifes, figures and portraits, he is also known for his paintings representing scenes of Jewish folklore, by which, "preserving his identity as a Slavic Jew, he resembles Chagall and Mané-Katz", and some lithographs, the latter published as part of his participations in the Salons of painters witnesses of their time.