EXHIBIT OF THE MONTH

Yehuda Epstein was born in 1870 in Slutsk, Mogilev Governorate. He was the firstborn child in a poor rabbi family. At the age of seventeen, Epstein entered the Vilnius School of Drawing, and for a short while studied at the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg.

 

From 1888 to 1894, he continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. During the studies, Epstein won the Michael Beer prize twice, which gave him the opportunity to go to Italy. Michael Beer (1800–1833), a German poet, playwright and patron of Jewish origin, in his will dedicated his wealth to supporting young Jewish artists. The Berlin Academy of Fine Arts was respnosible for awarding the scholarships in the period between 1836 and 1921.

 

In 1901, Epstein presented his impressions of the trips to Rome to his viewers. Italian landscapes created by the artist were exhibited in the exhibition hall of the House of Artists in Vienna. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1894, Epstein lived and worked in Vienna for several decades. During World War I, he served as an artist in the Austrian army. In the aftermath of World War I, Epstein founded an art studio and in 1924 became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Yehuda Epstein was a brilliant colourist and painter, and became famous as a talented portraitist.

 

In 1934, the democratic system was abolished in Austria and the authoritarian regime of the Fatherland Front was introduced. As a result, anti-Semitic sentiment in the country became ever stronger. Thus, Yehuda Epstein and his family left for South Africa, where the artist died in 1945, in Johannesburg. In 1949, the urn with the artist's remains was brought to Vienna and buried in the Jewish quarter of the city cemetery.