Composition abstraite, 1960

Pinchas (Maryan) Burstein  

Pinchas Burstein, mostly known by his nickname Maryan S. Maryan, is an American painter of Polish origins born January 1, 1927 in Poland and died on June 15, 1977 in New York.

Pinchas Burstein is an artist who come a long way: a teenager during the World War II, he was sent to Auschwitz and was the only one of his family to survive. When the Russians arrived, the Germans decided to shoot the survivors; He survived but had one leg amputated. He then went to Jerusalem to study art and painting at the New Bézalel Art School. Three years later, Pinchas Burstein moved to Paris and studied lithography in the studio of Fernand Léger at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

Pinchas Burstein is considered one of the fathers of New Figuration. In the 50s, his art oscillates between abstraction and figuration. In the 60s, he switched to an expressionist and symbolic figuration, representing derisively solitary characters. Pinchas Burstein is the author of an original and strong work composed of different periods, including the periods of the characters "roulettes" and "Boxes" (from 1959 to 1962), characters "in the desert" (1955 to 1957)" Florished Knights" (1953-1954) and "Robot Knights" (1957-1959), the "American period" (from the 1960s until his death).

His work was exhibited at the Breteau Gallery in 1952, then at the Gallery of France in 1956. The Museum of Art and History of Judaism in Paris also devoted a monographic exhibition to him in 2014.