Portrait of a Rabbi.

Karl Witkowski was born in Jaslowiec, Poland (now Ukraine) and as a young boy showed unusual talent in drawing, whereupon his parents sent him to school in Czortkow. In 1879 Witkowski enlisted in the Austrian Army (southern Poland at the time was occupied by Austria and renamed Galicia), where he gained popularity by creating portraits of his fellow soldiers and commanding officers, including a portrait of General Duke William of Wuerttemberg. Later he trained in the studio of Polish artist Jan Matejko and was further inspired to work in his mentor’s specialty of genre and portrait painting. Following migration to the United States in 1884, Witkowski was often commissioned to paint the elite of New York City and Newark. Yet ironically it was his paintings of newsboys and street urchins in these same cities that brought him lasting recognition. These pictures of these young people are remarkable for their odd combination of sentimentalism and realism. A portrait such as the current fine painting of a venerable Jew is a most uncommon canvas for Witkowski to have created.