Morris Topchevsky

Artist and activist Morris Topchevsky immigrated to Chicago from Bialystok in 1911.In his early twenties, Topchevsky studied art at Hull-House, a settlement house for immigrants on Chicago’s Near West Side, and subsequently at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A trip to Mexico in 1924, during which he met and worked with the muralist Diego Rivera, further strengthened his commitment to employing art as a means of resisting and overcoming oppression. Topchevsky spent a number of years teaching at the Abraham Lincoln Centre on Chicago’s South Side, working with the local African American community.