Elijah Kanarek, THE GIRL WITH A DOLLY

61,3 x 51,5 cm - oil, canvas

Signed p.d.: E. Kanarek

On the g. strip of the painting loom (in pencil): GA WHITE



Provenance: from September 2024 to November 2025 the painting was on deposit at the Nadwiślańskie Museum in Kazimierz Dolny.



♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Eliasz Kanarek (Skowierzyna or Warsaw 1901 - Scottsville USA 1969), painter from the circle of the so-called "Pruszkowiaks" - students of Tadeusz Pruszkowski, began his studies at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts under his tutelage in 1923. He belonged to the "Brotherhood of St. Luke," established in 1925, and together with his professor and colleagues went on summer plein-air trips to Kazimierz on the Vistula River. He participated in exhibitions of the Brotherhood, and also exhibited with the group Blok ZAP, at the Warsaw IPS and abroad, including the Venice Biennale (1934) and the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (1937). As a cartoonist, he collaborated with the satirical magazine "Pins". In 1938, together with Pruszkowski and fellow Brotherhood members, he worked on a set of seven paintings on historical themes for the World Exhibition in New York (120 x 200 cm; tempera on board). In March 1939 - together with Boleslaw Cybis - he sailed on the "Batory" to the USA to supervise the installation of the Polish Pavilion (opened on May 3, 1939) at the exhibition. There he was found by the war, after which he never returned to the country. Kanarek, like all "Lukas", was very concerned with workshop perfection. He painted portraits, still lifes, landscapes and figural scenes, including religious ones (Children's Crusade, ca. 1928; MNW). His earlier works are maintained in dark tones, while his later works, painted with a lighter color palette, approach the trend of colorism. Sometimes he introduced elements of humor, grotesque, stylization or even deformation of figures (Idyll, 1932, Museum of the Jewish Historical Institute). The artist also had film experience: he appeared as an actor in the amateur film Happy Hanging, or California in Poland, shot by "Pruszkowiaks" in Kazimierz (1926), and as a set designer he collaborated on the film Wild Fields, directed by Jerzy Lejtes (1932). Note: data on the place of birth (Skowierzyn) - and the place and date of the artist's death (usually determined to be around 1970) - are given after: J. Maśnicki. K. Stepan, Pleograph. Biographical dictionary of Polish film 1896-1939, Krakow 1996.