Objects

Portrait of a Jew by the Kalisz painter and versatile self-taught artist Tadeusz Kościelniak (1910-1996). An oil painting on fibreboard, with a rich, sometimes impasto texture, in portrait rectangular format (53 x 45 cm), framed in a gilt frame. It dates from the late 1970s and is most likely a part of a triptych of three colours (blue, yellow and red).

The painting depicts a bust of a man with Semitic features framed en trois quarts against a red-orange-brown background. The man has dark eyes, a drawn, furrowed face, facial hair and a prominent, hooked nose. He turns his head to the left and raises his hand to his mouth, thoughtfully touching his chin. His bushy eyebrows are clearly raised. He is dressed in a white shirt and black bekishe, wearing a yarmulke on his head, from under which black strands of frizzy hair poke out.

In the upper left corner of the work there is a signature "Tad. Kościelniak", repeated on the reverse: "Tad. Kościelniak / 1979."

The painting was purchased for the Museum's collection from a private person in 2023.