Mojżesz Lejbowski

17 III 1876, Navahrudak (today’s Belarus) – 1942 or 1943, the Vilnius ghetto

Mojżesz Lejbowski was a painter and well-known portrait artist whose works were exhibited in Vilnius, Białystok, Minsk, and Grodno. He also created paintings of cityscapes, as well as depictions of alleys and courtyards inhabited by poor city dwellers.

He was born on 17 March 1876 in Navahrudak (Novogrudok), today’s Belarus. He studied painting in Vilnius where he was taught by Ivan Trutnev, a Russian painter and the founder of the Vilnius School of Drawing. He went on to study painting in Paris where he lived in 1899-1900 and later in 1904. In the interwar period, he lived in Vilnius, working as a drawing teacher. After the establishment of the Vilnius Jewish Society of Fine Artists in 1925, he became the society’s chairman. In this role, he was responsible for e.g. organization of material aid for artists.

He was a famous portraitist, who used not only oil paints, but also pastels. Apart from portraits of people, he focused on depicting picturesque cityscapes and scenes from the lives of urban residents. The Jewish poor were one of the most important themes of his art. He was a teacher of Rafael Chwoles, a Jewish painter and graphic artist who was a member of the Vilnius literary and artistic group “Jung Wilne” (Young Vilnius). Lejbowski’s works were exhibited in such cities as Vilnius, Białystok, Minsk, and Grodno.

In 1940, he lived in Grodno, but in 1941, he was forced to move to the ghetto in Vilnius. The cause and exact date of his death remain unknown. He is believed to have died in the Vilnius ghetto in 1942 or 1943. No photographs of Lejbowski have survived. The only known portrait of the artist is a caricature made by the painter Leonard Torwirt.