Portrait of Saul Tchernichovski

Leonid Pasternak

1923

Portrait painting of man wearing a suit and gazing toward the right with one hand tucked under his coat lapel.

Saul Tchernichovski (1875–1943) is considered one of the great modern Hebrew poets. His poems are part of the canon of Israeli literature, and his portrait appears on Israeli currency. Pasternak painted this portrait in 1923, when both men were living in Berlin, although Pasternak had painted Tchernichovski’s portrait several years before, in Russia. In 1921, Pasternak left Moscow, never to return, as he felt that the political situation would not allow him to continue his work as an artist. His post-impressionist style was not in fashion in Russia at the time, and he had greater prospects in Western Europe. His declining health and that of his wife also determined his decision to leave. He remained in Berlin until 1938.

Credits

Collection Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Gift of the artist, Berlin, 1935.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 8.

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Creator Bio

Leonid Pasternak

1862–1945
The impressionist painter Leonid Pasternak was born in Odessa and trained there and in Munich. In 1889, he settled in Moscow, where he taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1894 to 1918. Although not a nationalist painter, he often painted Jewish subject matter and was close to Jewish intellectual circles, producing illustrations for publications of the Society for Jewish Folk Music. He moved to Berlin in 1921, leaving behind in Moscow his son, the poet and novelist Boris Pasternak, a convert to Russian Orthodoxy who shared none of his father’s Jewish interests. Leonid Pasternak lived in Berlin until 1938, when he fled to England, living first in London and then Oxford.

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