(born Pinkus Szwarc, later Pinchas Shaar, 1923 in Łódź — 1996 in New York)

When he was young, Pinkus Schwarz studied under Władysław Strzemiński, one of the most important avantgarde artists in Poland and co-founder of the Museum of Art (Muzeum Sztuki) in Łódź, who also organized the first exhibition of Schwarz’s work in his native city. In 1939, Schwarz fled with his brothers to Lviv, then occupied by the Soviet Union, but returned to Łódź in 1940 to support his parents and his sister in the ghetto. He was deported with his father and brothers to Oranienburg concentration camp in 1944 and later to a subcamp of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After liberation by the Soviet Army, Schwarz returned to Łódź but did not want to stay there after what he had experienced and was registered in St. Ottilien DP Hospital in Upper Bavaria on December 28, 1945.

At the time of the “Exhibition of Jewish Artists” he was living in the Jewish DP camp in Feldafing. Schwarz showed 46 works, including seven models for stage sets that he had designed for the Yiddish camp theater.

Schwarz emigrated to Paris in 1948 and then to Israel in 1951. He changed his name to Pinchas Shaar. He exhibited his works at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum New York, and in the Israeli Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice in 1960, among others.

More about Pinkus Schwarz in the Story “Lenbachhaus 1948: Exhibition of Jewish Artists”