The biography of Zygmunt Menkes has a romantic quality, evoking the life stories of leading figures of the Parisian bohemia. The artist arrived in Paris in 1923, almost without means of support. Despite difficult conditions, the atmosphere of the city proved immensely inspiring for him. As he later recalled: “I breathed in this marvelous atmosphere with full lungs; I felt the strong vibration of artistic life. I saw painters leaving their studios, I saw paint shops, and I dreamed of some corner where I too could begin to paint. But how was I to do it? I could never say how I survived that difficult period.” (quoted in: Władysława Jaworska, Zygmunt Menkes. Painter of the École de Paris, “Biuletyn Historii Sztuki,” 1996, nos. 1–2, p. 18) At first, Menkes lived at the Hôtel Médical, where Marc Chagall and Eugeniusz Zak also resided—artists who played an important role in his artistic development. His painting quickly gained recognition from early supporters, including the dealer Jan Śliwiński (founder of the Sacre du Printemps gallery), the critic André Salmon, and the collector Niko Mazaraki. As Władysława Jaworska noted, the Parisian public was captivated by the intense expressiveness of Menkes’s works, the intuitive nature of his artistic choices, and his lack of attachment to any rigid pictorial doctrine. In his version of Expressionism, particular importance was given to a free handling of the brush, a saturated palette, and the ability to transform personal experience into the language of art. In his work, Menkes explored figural themes, portraits, nudes, still lifes, and landscapes. While painting, he employed means of expression characteristic of expressive colorism and Fauvism. Inspired by the art of Henri Matisse, he handled color patches and contour with great freedom.