04/01/2026
Aniela Menkes (Menkesowa) (1897 Łódź, Poland - 1941 killed in Lviv's Ghetto), Polish
Untitled
oil on canvas
Museum of art in Lodz, Poland
Polish contemporary artist, painter, graphic artist, also designed theatre decorations. She was associated with the pre-war artistic community in Łódź. From 1932, she was strongly influenced by the work and personality of Władysław Strzemiński . Almost all of the artist's creative output was lost during World War II . Menkes died in 1941, along with her entire family, probably shot in a public ex*****on.
She was born in Łódź into a merchant family. Her father was Dawid (or Daniel) Łęczycki, and her mother was Eugenia Rozental.
From 1918, she studied painting at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts under the supervision of Stanisław Lentz , Miłosz Kotarbiński, and Wojciech Kossak . She probably interrupted her studies in 1921. In the same year, she married Zygmunt Menkes (1895-1941), a lawyer. They had two daughters – twins Janina and Alicja (born September 5, 1922). The Menkes lived in Łódź at 35 G. Narutowicza Street.
From 1932 to 1939, she actively participated in the artistic community of Łódź, centered around the newly formed Association of Visual Artists (later the Trade Union of Polish Visual Artists). She was also a member of the Association's verification committee. She participated in Association exhibitions organized by the Institute of Art Propaganda in Łódź, Warsaw , Krakow , and Lviv. In 1932, at the Association's exhibition, she exhibited six oil works – five still lifes and the composition "Worker."
In 1933, as a mature artist, she participated in the exhibition of the Modern Visual Artists Group in Łódź and Warsaw, organized by artists of the "ar" group , including Władysław Strzemiński. This was the first large-scale presentation of avant-garde art in Poland. In 1937, she traveled to Paris, where she participated in the World Exhibition.
In 1939, two paintings by Aniela Menkes were presented at the exhibition "Still Life in Polish Painting" in Warsaw. Mieczysław Wallis described them as "something between still life and composition." That same year, at the outbreak of World War II, the artist and her family escaped to Lviv, where, during the Soviet era, she participated in the artistic life. She mainly exhibited her graphic art in Lviv, Kyiv, and Moscow.
In 1933, Aniela Menkes became a co-founder and member of the editorial committee (1933–1938) of the magazine "Forma," the organ of the Łódź ZZPAP, run until 1936 by Karol Hiller, then Stefan Wegner. The editorial board also included Władysław Strzemiński, Jerzy Krause, and Katarzyna Kobro. By 1939, six issues of the magazine had been published, and the seventh was confiscated by the Gestapo from Wegner's apartment just before distribution. Menkes published commentaries on reproductions of her works in "Forma" (1934 no. 2, 1935 no. 3, 1936 no. 4), as well as articles: On Critics (1933 no. 1), Issues of Painting in the 19th Century (1936 no. 5), and the essay "El Greco" (1938 no. 6). The artist was a co-author of "Forma" until the end of its existence.
Aniela Menkes painted still lifes, portraits, landscapes, industrial landscapes ( Power Plant, 1932), figurative scenes ( Worker, 1932), and abstract compositions in oil on canvas. Under the influence of Strzemiński and the "ar" group, her painting evolved from colorism through synthetic cubism to near-abstract compositions. Aniela Menkes's paintings were characterized by a single-plane approach to composition, a strong decorative flair, and a narrow color range limited to browns, beiges, and grays. The artist also practiced graphic art (almost exclusively during the war). She used etching, drypoint, lithography, and heliography. The subject matter of Menkes's graphic works did not differ from the themes taken up in painting (Lunapark, 1933, Electric Station, 1940, Street in Lviv, 1940, Electric Stop, 1940, Smoke, 1940).
Menkes also designed set designs. In 1938, she designed the sets for Juliusz Słowacki's The Constant Prince and Leonid Andreyev's Hunger.
Most of Aniela Menkes's works were lost during World War II. A few works have survived to this day in private collections and in the collection of the Museum of Art in Łódź. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniela_Menkes
