Painting by Harry Lieberman, Saul & the Witch of Endor
Painting (sight to frame): 23.5" x 19.5"
Frame: 29" x 25"

Harry Lieberman
(Source: folkartmuseum.org) Harry Lieberman was born in the small Polish shtetl, or Jewish village, of Gniewoszow, in the area of Eastern Europe known as the Pale of Settlement. He was raised according to the tenets of Hasidism, a populist-based, ecstatic practice of Judaism founded in the eighteenth century by the religious leader known as the Baal Shem Tov. In 1906 Lieberman immigrated to the United States, one of the many thousands of Jews fleeing the hardships and violence of Jewish life in Russian Poland.

That same year, at the age of 76, Lieberman began to paint, encouraged by a worker at the Golden Age Club of the Senior Citizen Center in Great Neck, New York. Lieberman started to paint vivid and dynamic narratives drawn primarily from Jewish history, religion, lore, and literature, although some works express his views on contemporary issues. The artist wrote texts in Yiddish and attached them to the backs of his paintings and today they provide insights into Lieberman’s personal history and also into the shtetl life that was destroyed during World War II.

Good condition overall