Pinchus KREMEGNE - Seated Nude - circa 1950 Oil on canvas Signed lower left ''Kremegne'' 73.0 x 50.0 cm / 28 3/4 x 19 3/4 in. Kremegne (Lithuanian, 1890-1981)Brought from Paris Gallery by present owner BiographyPinchus Kremegne was a Lithuanian painter and sculptor. He was born near Vilnius, where at the age of 19 he enrolled at the School of Fine Arts. As a student in Vilnius, he became friends with Chaim Soutine and Michel Kikoine. Due to Kremegne''s Jewish heritage and the growing anti-semitic sentiments, he realised that if he were to reach his full artistic potential he would have to leave. In 1912 he left for Paris, specifically La Ruche in Montparnasse. Kremegne urged his friend Soutine to also make the move to Paris, as Kikoine had already done in 1911.Kremegne at first practised sculpting and exhibited pieces at Salon des Ind�pendents in 1914. From 1915, however, he focused on painting. Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism had a particularly strong influence on his style. He became part of a tightly knit community of artists who lived and worked in Montparnasse, among them Chaim Soutine and Michel Kikoine, Andr� Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Max Jacob, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Lazare Volovick and Vladimir Na�ditch.Throughout his life Pinchus Kremegne created an impressive body of works, specifically striking are the powerfully expressive landscapes that he painted in C�r�t in the latter part of his creative life. Another significant section of Kremegne�s oeuvre are large still life''s that he painted in the 1920s and 1930s. Although Pinchus Kremegne has always remained in the shadow of bigger names in 20th-century art history like Chagall and Soutine, it has recently been recognised that Kremegne''s final years of artistic activity strongly influenced and prefigured British artists, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff.Pinchus Kremegne exhibited widely and successfully. Mainly at the Paris Salons: Salon des Ind�pendents, Salo...