Background
Segall was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 21, 1891. He was the son of a Torah scribe. His parents were Abel Segall and Esther Ghodes Glaser. Lasar Segall had seven siblings.
1918
Lasar Segall among friends.
1919
Dresden, Germany
Lasar Segall in his atelier in Dresden.
1922
Segall with friends on the beach in Hiddensee.
1925
Poços de Caldas, Brazil
Segall and Jenny in Poços de Caldas, April 1925.
1931
Paris, France
Jenny and Segall with their children Mauricio and Oscar in the Garden of Luxembourg, Paris.
1940
São Paulo, Brazil
Segall and the model Lucy Citti Ferreira.
1945
São Paulo, Brazil
Lasar Segall in São Paulo, c. 1945.
1957
São Paulo, Brazil
Last portrait of Lasar Segall in 1957, São Paulo. Photo by Luís Lorch.
Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Segall started his education at Berlin Prussian Academy of Arts (now the Academy of Arts, Berlin) in 1906, and graduated from it in 1910.
Brühlsche Terrasse 1, 01067 Dresden, Germany
At the end of 1910, Lasar Segall became a student of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.
Portrait of Lasar Segall.
Lasar Segall with his wife.
Lasar Segall working in his studio.
Mauricio Segall, Beatriz Segall, Lasar Segall, Jenny Klabin, Raquel Arnaud and Oscar Segall.
Maurício Segall, Dora Lucy Citti Ferreira, Lasar Segall, Jenny Klabin and Oscar Segall.
Segall was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 21, 1891. He was the son of a Torah scribe. His parents were Abel Segall and Esther Ghodes Glaser. Lasar Segall had seven siblings.
Lasar Segall received the first guidelines in drawing of Markus Antokolski, who encouraged him to continue his education in Germany. He moved to Berlin when he was 15.
He started his education at Berlin Prussian Academy of Arts (now the Academy of Arts, Berlin) in 1906, and graduated from it in 1910. At the end of the year, he moved to Dresden to pursue his studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he was influenced by impressionism of Liebermann.
At the end of his studies Segall was able to create his personal style, a mixture of Futurism, Cubism and Expressionism, always against the background of their Jewish origins.
In his early artworks throughout 1910 to the early 1920s, Segall mostly depicted troubled figures in claustrophobic surroundings with exaggerated and bold features, influenced by African tribal figures. In 1912 Lasar Segall travelled to São Paulo, Brazil, where he resided for a little more than one year. The same year his first painted series of works were conducted in an elderly mental hospital.
He moved back to Dresden in 1914 and was still rather active in the Expressionist style. In the year 1919, the artist founded the Dresdner Sezession Gruppe 1919 along with Conrad Felixmüller, Otto Dix, Otto Lange and several other painters. Soon he published a book of five etchings in Dresden, Souvenirs of Vilna in 1919, and also two books illustrated with lithographs titled Bubu and die Sanfte. His exhibit at the Galery Gurlitt was a huge success. Though Segall was in Europe, he had already been greatly influenced by his trip to Brazil, which had already changed both his style and his subject matter. It gave Segall the opportunity to obtain a strong idea of South American art and made him return to Brazil yet again.
After years of intense activity in Europe, with numerous solo and group exhibitions in various places, he went to Brazil in 1923, this time to settle permanently there. He obtained Brazilian citizenship in 1927. While in Brazil, his paintings became heavily influenced by the Red Light District in Rio de Janeiro. Segall's subject matter was influenced by many Brazilian artists and it strengthened his Cubist form. He started to create paintings contributing to Brazil's countryside, mulattoes, favelas, prostitutes and plantations. Due to the harsh nature of Segall's portrayal of prostitutes and his pictorial representation of human suffering, his works became controversial. This particular controversy caused Lasar Segall and other well-known artists to organize a pro Modernist event known as the Semana de Arte Moderna.
In the year 1923, the Semana de Arte Moderna, where Segall took part, was held. He was one of the mainstream forerunners in the art show. Lasar Segall's avant-garde innovations placed him among other Brazilian outstanding modern artists of that time, like Candido Portinari and Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.
Though Segall decided to reside in Brazil only, he continued to return to Europe from time to time for his own solo exhibitions. In 1928 he returned to Europe and lived four years in Paris. Here he began to exploit his talent as a sculptor. In 1932 the artist established an organization along with other artists known as Sociedade Pro-Arte Moderna (SPAM). The organization was short-lived, it existed for only 2 years from 1932 to 1934. SPAM's main idea was to serve as a bridge that linked artists, intellectuals, collectors, patrons, with the public.
SPAM held two exhibitions. The first show exhibited artworks from the artists of the School of Paris from multiple São Paulo collections which acknowledged Brazilian artists of the time, including Tarsila do Amaral, Anita Malfatti, John Graz, Victor Brecheret, Regina Graz and Rossi Osir. The second exhibition consisted of Brazilian artists from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro only, for instance, di Cavalcanti, Ismael Nery, Portinari and Alberto da Veiga Guignard.
Segall's artworks included in the group exhibition were two of his most important series of paintings in 1935; Campos do Jordao landscapes and the Portraits of Lucy. Lucy was Segall's understudy disciple and Segall executed a series of images dedicated to her. Both series depicted the world's outbreak of war, portraying genocides and human tragedy. However, because of some internal disagreements among the members of the group it soon ceased its existence.
In spite of the dissolution of SPAM, Lasar Segall's artworks were still much acclaimed in Brazil. He became one of Brazil's most influential modernist artists. But in Europe, his works were considered degenerate and ridiculous. Besides, his artworks were no longer able to be displayed in exhibits in Germany. This negative impact on his oeuvre forced Lasar Segall to produce a series of images of his troubled Jewish childhood and to depict the large number of emigration waves that he grew up with.
Segall worked on one of his most famous works in 1939 and 1940, known as Navio de emigrantes (Ship of Emigrants), depicting a heavily condensed and large amount of people on the dock of a ship. Later in the mid-1940s, Lasar Segall published his series of Mangue drawings that revealed poverty in the Rio de Janeiro slums. From 1949 till 1957 he continued to work on engraving and painting Mangue as well as producing a series titled Wandering Women and Forests.
Família
Aldeia Russa
Brazilian Landscape
The Tragedy
Auto-retrato III
Morro Vermelho
Encontro
unknown title
Maternidade
Mãe Morta
Dois nus
O bebedouro
Duas Figuras
Retrato de Mario de Andrade
A família enferma
Natureza morta com três vasos de cactos
Three Young Girls
Perfil de Zulmira
Wandering women II
Portrait Prof. Schwangart
Portrait of Mary Wigman
Mother and child looking out over the sea
Two heads
Blinder Junge
Two heads
A Jew with the Torah
Four cows
Emigrantes III
Dos figuras
Natureza morta
Personnages
Mother and child
In 1925 Lasar Segall became extremely close to one of his pupil, Jenny Klabin. Eventually, the artist married her. The couple gave birth to two sons Mauricio and Oscar.