The Chassidic Violinist.

Born in Leningrad to a long-standing family of Chabad Lubavitch Chassidim, Zalman Kleinman was a self-taught artist whose works are enormously popular especially among his fellow-Lubavitchers. After leaving Russia at age thirteen, he studied in yeshiva in Paris, eventually moving to Israel where he served in the Israeli Defense Forces. Later he relocated to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. There, while resident in the immediate vicinity of the Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch and his inner circle, Kleinman produced a series of pentrating and moving paintings that sought to portray the life of his Chassidic community. In a letter to the artist from the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Kleinman’s artwork is described as “impressive and simplistic.” Although not formally trained, classical art references abound in Kleinman’s work. One can note positive comparisons between, for example, Isidor Kaufmann’s ‘Beth Hamidrasch’ (1895) and Kleinman’s ‘Shabbos Afternoon in Shul’ (1968 and 1981). Or see the Impressionist-like technique in Kleinman’s nature-themed oils ‘Morning’ (1990) and ‘The Catskills’ (1975). Finally, notice the Edward Hopper influenced ‘Kiddush Levona’ (1984) and ‘Pier #17’ (1988). See The Chassidic Art Institute Catalogue, Zalman Kleinman: Paintings (New York, 2001). << Works by Zalman Kleinman very infrequently appear at auction.>>