Watercolor, paper, 68 x 46 cm, signed Landau
Portrait of Hanna Rovina, Israeli actress, often referred to as the First Lady of the Hebrew Theater.
Sigmund Landau was descended from rabbis from Strykow. He learned the basics of painting in the studio of Henryk Epstein, and continued at the drawing school of Jakub Kacenbogen. He then entered the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he studied in the studio of Prof. Stanislaw Lentz. At the age of 18, he worked as a teacher of painting. He made his debut in 1918, exhibiting portraits and cityscapes at the Spring Exhibition of the Association of Artists and Supporters of Fine Arts in Lodz. In 1920 he went to Paris and studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Colarossi Academy. He continued to maintain lively contacts with Poland, and his works participated in exhibitions held in Warsaw and Lodz. A significant influence on his work during this period was Moses Kisling and Amedeo Modigliani, with whom he was friends. He created still lifes, flowers, portraits, figural scenes and landscapes. He exhibited works at the Salon of Independents and the Autumn Salon. After Nazi troops entered France, he left for Saint-Tropez, where he hid until the end of World War II in an apartment formerly occupied by British artist and critic Roger Fry. His stay in Provence had a profound influence on his work, especially his choice of colors and sense of color. From then on, calm and serenity emanate from his paintings, the figures depicted are in dreamy poses, frequent subjects include motherhood, nudes, family scenes, sleeping couples, farmers, harvesters at work and women at fountains. The influence of Cézanne and Modigliani is evident. After the war ended, he lived in Nice for a while before returning to Paris. In the late 1950s he went to Israel, where he continued to create, his last work being a stained glass window for a chapel in the YMCA building in Tiberias.
