Lasar Segall

The son of a Torah scribe in Vilna, Lasar Segall traveled alone at age fifteen to Berlin to study art. He became involved with the expressionist school, and his work, like that of many German expressionists, dealt with the themes of poverty, powerlessness, and social deprivation. In 1923, he settled in Brazil, where three of his siblings were already living. Though geographically distant from the horrors that engulfed Europe in the late 1930s and 1940s, in his work he powerfully addressed the upheaval, dislocation, and brutality unfolding there.