A Still Life of Flowers in a Vase

Biography of Sigmund Menkes ( 1896 - 1986, Polish-American )

Born in 1896 in Lvov, Poland, Menkes lived and worked after the First World War in Berlin and Paris, to where he moved in 1923. He emigrated to the United States in 1935, settling in New York City.

Menkes studied at the Lvov Higher Institute of Art and the Krakow Academy of Fine Art in Poland. He was a life fellow of the International Insititute of Arts and Letters and a member of the Woodstock Artists Association; the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors (President 1942-43); the National Academy of Design, New York; and the Societe des Independants, Salon d’Automne, and Societe du Salon des Tuilleries in Paris.

Menkes exhibited widely, including at the Corcoran Gallery Biennials (1939-57, received Gold Medal), Washington, D.C; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Annuals (1941-66, received Gold Medal), Philadelphia; the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; the University of Nebraska; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; American University, Washington, D.C.; State University of Iowa; Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Cornelius Sullivan Galleries, New York; Durand-Ruel Gallery; Association of American Artists; Art Institute of Chicago; National Institute of Arts and Letters; Audubon Artists; Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences; Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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