Missing the Rabbi

In the annals of modernist art, three European Jewish names stand out: Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, and Amedeo Modigliani. A fourth should be added. This is Emmanuel Mané Katz. Born in 1894 to a traditional Jewish family in the Ukraine, he moved to Paris at the age of nineteen to pursue a career as a painter, and there joined the three more fabled artists named above. Together, they have been loosely called the School of Paris. [Not Marc Chagall, Aryeh Tepper]

Les Désguisés, M. Laurencin

In 1986 my mother and I visited the Petit Palais museum in Geneva, Switzerland. My primary reason for wanting to visit was to see artwork by Marie Laurencin, whose paintings of women I had come to admire. Before leaving the Petit Palais we went to the gift store where I purchased a print of one of Laurencin's paintings along with a print by Emmanuel Mané- Katz. He was completely unknown to me that day and sadly, for many years I wasn't even sure of his name when it hung on my living room wall. 

The Rabbi was painted towards the end of Mane-Katz' life in 1960.  Typical of his later work it is bright and colorful with a red-headed rabbi and a Torah cover of bright green. Rabbis, Torah covers and members of the Jewish community were primary subjects for M-K.  If, like me you've spent years with one of his paintings, you will see that the faces in The Rabbi are mirrored in many of M-K's work. Although, I must say, that I find the expressions in my painting to be particularly deep and meaningful.

Three years ago we moved twice in one summer and some how the rabbi never made it to our final destination. There is no way to truly replace the print. I can't go back to the Petit Palais gift shop. In fact, nobody can! It was a privately owned museum which closed after the owner died. The paintings are cared for by a trust which loans them to museums around the world. To date I can find no trace of my painting. I have searched for hours with little luck. M-K had a few favorite subjects, rabbis, students, Hasidic communities and Klezmer musicians. Every so often there is a still life of flowers or a bare breasted woman, but mostly it's Jewish men teaching, praying, worshipping or simply being, all of which makes this search more difficult. In the meantime though, I have come to have a deeper appreciation for this artist whose work clearly demonstrates his connections to Chagall, Picasso and others of his age. Again from Tepper's 2011 post in Jewish Ideas Daily.

The Rabbi, Emmanuel Mané-Katz

"Mané-Katz's connection to the Jewish world was based on more than nostalgia for a vanished past. He first visited the land of Israel in 1928, and returned often even while spending most of his adult life in Paris. During Israel's 1948-49 war of independence, he arrived with sixty of his paintings for an exhibition at the Tel Aviv museum; he was the fourth tourist formally to enter the newborn country.

"His love affair with Israel was officially consummated in 1958 when the city of Haifa offered him a modest villa perched on Mount Carmel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with the understanding that his works would be stored there after he passed away. He died suddenly four years later, in 1962. Today, the site is home to the Mané Katz museum." [A. Tepper] 

Today I emailed a used book store which has a museum catalog featuring the work of Mane-Katz. The Rabbi is the cover artwork and I am hoping it is of a size worth framing. On the other hand, if it is only as big as a snapshot, that might be okay as well. It would still remind me of the day with my mother; the lovely house that became a museum; and what it means for me to study the Hebrew Bible.