Maurice Mendjizky was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1890. He came from a modest family, his father being a tinsmith. He learned drawing at the Katsenenboygn school in Lodz, and showed exceptional talent for the art from the age of seven. There he met the architect Monsieur Landau, who financed his departure for Paris in 1906. For a year, he studied with Fernand Cormon at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Independent by temperament, he left the École des Beaux-Arts to study with Henri Martin and Anglada. The painter was also close to Modigliani and Soutine. He was wounded in the First World War, bedridden for two years in Nîmes, before returning to Paris in 1918. Maurice Mendjizky shared a romance with Kiki de Montparnasse from 1918 to ...