Portrait of lady

Leopold Gottlieb came from an affluent Jewish family. He had three brothers, and each of them showed interest in painting. The most outstanding was the oldest one, Maurycy Gottlieb, Jan Matejko's disciple, among others. Leopold studied at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts already under Jacek Malczewski and Teodor Axentowicz (between 1896 and 1902), then he received education in Munich in the atelier of Anton Azbe (from 1903). He was the initiator of the Grupa pieciu (Group of Five) in Kraków in 1905, which included Vlastimil Hofman, Mieczysław Jakimowicz, Jan Rembowski, and Witold Wojtkiewicz. In 1904 he settled in Paris. He was associated with a group of artists referred to as the École de Paris, a term first used by the critic and draughtsman André Warnod in 1925 to refer to artists of mainly Jewish origin from Central and Eastern Europe. Paris, most often the Montparnasse district, became their new home. It was here that they fully formed their artistic attitudes, and their most intensive and fruitful artistic activity took place in the 1920s. In the National Museum in Szczecin, there is a portrait of a woman framed in bust by Gottlieb. A narrow face slightly turned to the left, captivated with a deep expression. The gaze of large, beer-blue eyes and a half-smile on a narrow mouth express reflection and intrigue. The composition is based on strong contrasts where the face is illuminated by light coming from the right, the hair, the large hat and the clothes are painted in black. The background shows a mixture of reds and browns.

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