David Petrovich Shterenberg

The Russian painter David Petrovich Shterenberg was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine, and studied art in Odessa and then in Paris, where he lived from 1906 to 1912 and was a member of the East European Jewish artistic colony. He did not return to Russia permanently until 1917. In the 1930s, his avant-garde individualism, shaped during his Paris years, fell out of favor with the regime and he was forced to work in a more realistic style. This did not spare him, however, from being marginalized by the Soviet art world.