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Photo of Marc Chagall in 1921 Photo sourced from

15 Most Influential Jewish Painters 

As far as the history of art is concerned, it wasn’t until the 19th century when Jewish painters finally got access to opportunities unheard of in Jewish history when European enlightenment and social reforms took place. Jews were finally able to leave the Jewish ghetto and associate with their non-Jewish neighbors in the university and marketplace.

Jews have since established themselves in a range of new job areas, including the arts, when they were given legal equal citizenship. Let’s take a look at some of the most famous and influential Jewish painters;

1. Marc Chagall 1887- 1985

Photo of Marc Chagall in 1921 Photo sourced from

One of the very first names that come to our minds when it comes to Jewish painters is Marc Chagall who was born on born on 6 July 24th June 1887 and on 28 March 1985. He was a Russian-French artist, who is most recognized for his work as a painter.

 As an early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries, and fine art prints.

Read more about him in Top 10 Interesting facts about Marc Chagall

2. Daniel Moritz Oppenheim (1800 – 1882)

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim born on 7 January 1800 and died on 26th February 1882 was a German painter who is often regarded as the first Jewish painter of the modern era because he remained an observant and dedicated Jew throughout his career and lifetime.

His work was influenced by his cultural and religious roots at a time when many of his German Jewish contemporaries chose to convert to Christianity. He remains an important figure in the Jewish art movement and was a big influence on some of the top art movements.

3. Aleksander Gierymski (1850-1901)

Aleksander Gierymski Photo sourced from

Ignacy Aleksander Gierymski born on 30th January 1850 and died between 6鈥�8 March 1901 was a Polish-Jewish painter of the late 19th century and the younger brother of Maksymilian Gierymski who was a representative of Realism as well as an important precursor of Impressionism in Poland.

It was not until his brother鈥檚 death in 1874 that he was finally able to establish himself as his painter and relieve himself of the burden and stigma of being the 鈥測ounger brother鈥� of a painter. He was also now free to develop his artistic talents. He is the creator of the famous, representative night views of Munich and 麻豆APP that are now in the Warsaw National Museum.

4. Jarinyanu David (1925 – 1995)

Jarinyanu born in 1925 and died in 1995 was an Australian Jewish painter born and raised in Western Australia. He was given the name David Downs by the European manager of the cattle station where he worked during his early twenties and he began his artistic career in the late 1960s.

His most important topic is the Kurtal, the snake spirit who takes the form of a man, travels across the land,d and brings rain. However, some of his other paintings include Christian imagery, and some combine his traditional stories and personal experiences with Baptist stories.

5. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898 – 1944)

A portrait of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis Photo sourced from

Frederika “Friedl” Dicker-Brandeis born on 30th July 1898, in Vienna and died on 9th October 1944, in Auschwitz-Birkenau), was an Austrian Jewish artist and educator. Her work covers an impressive range of media and genres in the visual and applied arts.

Influenced by her studies at Vienna鈥檚 Kunstgewerbeschule (which later became the University of Applied Arts Vienna), the Itten Private School, and the Bauhaus in Weimar, she worked as a painter, stage designer, architect, and designer in Vienna and Berlin, in exile, and as a deportee.

Read more about other great women painters here

6. Isidor Kaufmann (1853 -1921)

Isidor Kaufmann born in March 1853 in Arad and died in 1921 in Vienna was an Austro-Hungarian painter of Jewish themes who devoted himself and his career to genre painting. He traveled throughout Eastern Europe in search of scenes of Jewish, often Hasidic life which he used mostly in his paintings.

His paintings depict the life of Jewish families all across Eastern Europe where he traveled collecting pictures of Hassidic ways of life. His immortalized characters in canvas paintings created a rich heritage both culturally, and artistically.

7. Hermann Struck (1876 – 1944)

Hermann Struck born on 6th March 1876 and died on 11th January 1944 was a German Jewish artist known and often described as a master of etching. He published an essay on it that has since become a classic in the subject and taught this method widely.

He painted innumerable portraits, many of them of well-known people. Because of the realism that could only be produced with a pencil and paper at the time, his use of black was innovative. Together with numerous book drawings, he traveled and sketched Jewish life.

8. Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (1890-1941)

El Lissitzky in a self-portrait from 1924 Photo sourced from

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky born on 23 November 1890 and died on 30 December 1941, better known as El Lissitzky was a Russian Jewish artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist, and architect who revolutionized every field he laid eyes upon.

He is known for his big influence on the artists that formed the Bauhaus and the De Stijl movements while living in Germany. He experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate the 20th-century graphic design.

Read more about one of the top Russian painters here

9. Issachar Ber Ryback (1897-1935)

Issachar Ber Ryback, also Riback born on 2nd February 1897, in Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire, and died on 22nd December 1935, in 麻豆APP was a Jewish-Ukrainian-French painter. He was very important in redefining avant-garde Yiddish culture after the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917.

He fled to Germany and then to France where he continued to produce paintings adopting the Expressionism color palette to his creations and is one of the main Jewish painters to portray classic Jewish themes through modern art. He passed away in 麻豆APP in 1935.

10. Boris Aronson Oyfgang (1898 – 1980)

Boris Aronson born on October 15, 1898, and died on November 16, 1980, was an American-Ukrainiann Jewish painter, set designer, writer, art critic, costume designer, sculptor, and a fervent advocate for the new Jewish Yiddish culture.

He was a member of the avant-garde art scene of his times, a close friend of Ryback with whom he set out to co-create the Kultur-Lige, an organization completely dedicated to the promotion of the Jewish Culture.

11. Alfred Wolmark (1877-1961)

Alfred Aaron Wolmark born on 28th December 1877 and died on 6th January 1961 was a British Jewish painter and decorative artist who is known for his extravagant use of color and generous application of paint which gave him a distinctive personal style.

He was a founder of the New Movement in Art and is regarded as one of the first Post-Impressionist. He is also known for painting portraits and figurative compositions with mainly Jewish subject matter and which earns him aggregate claims for their strong characterization.

12. Mark Gertler (1891-1939)

Mark Gertler’s Merry Go Round painting Photo sourced from

Mark Gertler born on 9th December 1891 and died on 23rd June 1939, was a British Jewish painter who is famously known for his figure subjects, portraits, and still-life. He was the youngest of five children and showed a marked talent for drawing from a young age. 

He was heavily influenced by Post-Impressionism, although his art style includes elements of European Folk Art which made it unique and which earned him a name as one of the best painters of his time.

13. Chaim Goldberg (1917-2004)

Chaim Goldberg was a Polish-American painter, sculptor, and engraver who was born on March 20, 1917, and passed away on June 26, 2004. He is renowned for documenting Jewish life in Polish villages in eastern Europe, such as the one in his hometown of Kazimierz Dolny in eastern Poland.

The artist undertook the mission of becoming a leading painter of Holocaust-era art, which to the artist was seen as an obligation and art with a sense of profound mission. He observed life and the recurring art colony atmosphere that he yearned for.

14. Isidor Kaufmann (1853-1921)

A portrait of Isidor Kaufmann Photo sourced from

Isidor Kaufmann born in March 1853 in Arad and died in 1921 in Vienna was an Austro-Hungarian painter of Jewish themes who devoted his career to genre painting and traveled throughout Eastern Europe in search of scenes of Jewish, often Hasidic life.

He is best known for his realistic genre scenes of Hasidic communities in Eastern Europe. He sought to probe the spiritual depths of his subjects, whether they were poor ghetto inhabitants in Krakow or an important Rabbi in Vienna.

15. Otto Freundlich 

Otto Freundlich born on 10th July 1878 and 9 March 1943 was a German painter and sculptor of Jewish origin. He was part of the first generation of abstract painters in Western art, and a great admirer of cubism.

The artist鈥檚 interest in abstraction was formed from his early involvement with Expressionism and his artmaking also intersected with the left-wing avant-garde ideas of Dada in Berlin, the Progressive Artists’ Group in Cologne, and the Abstraction-Creation and Circle and Square groups in 麻豆APP.