Cavatina Art Concept Artist

Mojżesz Kisling

Painter of Classical Modernism, Associated with the École de Paris

Mojżesz Kisling

Krakow 1891 – Sanary-sur-Mer 1953

Mojżesz Kisling studied under Józef Pankiewicz at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts from 1907 to 1911. Following Pankiewicz’s advice, he moved to Paris for further studies, where the critics André Salmon and Adolf Basler became interested in his work and he received a scholarship from an anonymous Russian patron.

During the First World War, Kisling served in the French Foreign Legion, was wounded, and discharged in 1915, after which he likely received French citizenship. From around 1920, he spent his summers in Sanary-sur-Mer, where he bought a house and maintained ties to Poland.

During the Second World War, he joined the French army and fled to New York in 1940. After the war, he returned to Sanary-sur-Mer in 1946. Kisling was one of the leading figures of the École de Paris during the interwar period and exhibited frequently. He also participated in Polish artistic life, including the first Polish Expressionist exhibition in 1917. At the beginning of his career, he painted Cubist landscapes and still lifes. Portraits, particularly of artists, critics, and the Parisian art world, were a recurring theme in his work. His depictions of women and nudes are known for their frontal seated postures and stylized facial features.

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