Jacob Steinhardt

Jacob Steinhardt was born in 1887 in Żerków

Steinhardt was born in 1887 in Zerkow, in the German Empire, a town that is now Żerków in Poland. In 1906 he began studying at the School of Art in Berlin. In 1907 he studied painting with Lovis Corinth and engraving with Hermann Struck.

From 1908 to 1910 he lived in Paris, where he was close to Henri Matisse and Théophile Steinlen, and in 1911 he was in Italy. In 1912 he founded the expressionist group Die Pathetiker with Ludwig Meidner and Richard Janthur. The group broke up when World War I began.

During the war he served in the German Army on the Eastern Front and later in Macedonia. He returned to Berlin, married Minni Gumpert in 1922, and their daughter Josefa was born in 1923. After harassment by the German police under the Nazis, the family moved to the Land of Israel in 1933.

He moved to Jerusalem in 1934 and opened a private art school there. He later taught at Bezalel and headed the school until 1957. In 1955 his works went to the São Paulo Biennale, where he won first prize for graphic art.

Steinhardt died in 1968 and was buried in Nahariya. A large collection of his work is held at the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the Israel Museum showed his work in 2010 and 2011.