Background

Selska-Reich was born in Kolomyia, Ukraine, on June 26, 1900. She was the daughter of Isaac Reich, an engineer, and Laura Reich.

Education

Margit Selska-Reich started her artistic studies at the Free Academy of Art in Lviv (today the Lviv National Academy of Arts), where she studied with Leonard Podhorodecki, Feliks Michał Wygrzywalski and E. Pitsch. Between 1920 and 1922 Selska-Reich continued her education at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow with Ignacy Pieńkowski, Władysław Jarocki and Henryk Kunzek. From 1925 Margit Selska-Reich became a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then she took lessons from Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant in Paris.

Career

Selska-Reich's early paintings were particularly influenced by Fernand Léger. She debuted during an exhibition of paintings in the Salon des Indépendants in 1926. During this period Margit Selska-Reich worked under the influence of Renoir and produced paintings in the style that was a mixture of Impressionism, Cubism and Constructivism.

In the 1930s Margit Selska-Reich worked as an independent artist. During the Second World War, she became a prisoner of the Yanovsky concentration camp. Friends helped her secretly run away from the camp, saving her life. Trying to escape new arrest, the painter lived under a false name and used fictitious documents until the end of the war.

Later on, Margarita Reich-Selskaya joined a movement called "Ukrainian colorism," and produced portraits, still lifes and landscapes. She was an active participant of various art exhibitions in her later years, displaying her artworks in Lviv, Tarnopol, Stanisławów, Warsaw, Kraków and Lódz.

Achievements

• 

  Margit Selska-Reich became a well-known artist due to her unique and unrepeatable style. Her paintings are distinguished by the originality of both colour and compositional solutions.
  
  Selska-Reich was notable for such artworks as Caroussel, Portrait of the Artist R. Turin, Crimea. Rybachye Village, On a Verandah, Still Life, Woman with a Cat, At the Mirror. Today, most of her works are kept in different public and private collections.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Portrait of Roman Selsky

  • Bay

  • Caroussel

  • Church in Carpathian Mountains

  • Still Life with a Jug

  • At Wattle

  • Crimean Landscape

  • Nets

  • Portrait of the Artist R. Turin

  • Woman with a Cat

  • Still Life with Lamp

  • At the Mirror

  • Portrait of Roman Selsky

  • Seascape

  • Resting

  • A Tree near Dniester River

  • Village Landscape

  • Underground. Metaphysical Landscape

  • Still Life

  • Near the Forrest

  • Still Life

  • Female Portrait

  • Trunks

  • Crimea. Rybachye Village

  • Portrait of the Artist Monastyrsky

  • Over the Dniester River

  • On a Verandah

Membership

Selska-Reich, along with Roman Artists Association, was a co-founder of a group called Artes. She was also a member of the Association of Independent Ukrainian Artists and the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.

Interests

• Artists

  Fernand Léger, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Connections

Margit Reich married the Lviv painter Roman Selsky in 1926, acquiring her new surname - Selska-Reich.

Father:

Isaac Reich

Mother:

Laura Reich

Friend:

Piet Mondrian

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a Dutch painter and theoretician. He is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Mondrian is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th-century abstract art, as he changed his artistic direction from figurative painting to an increasingly abstract style.

husband:

Roman Selsky

Roman Selsky (1903-1990) was a Ukranian and Soviet artist and educator. Selsky is well-known for his numerous landscapes, still-lifes, portraits, subject painting, decorative compositions, drawings, appliqué and ceramics. Still-lifes and landscapes were the artist’s favourites, through which he revealed the best of his talent.

Friend:

Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was a French multi-disciplinary abstract artist and a key figure in the Parisian avant-garde. She pioneered Simultanism movement together with her husband, Robert Delaunay. Her exploration of the interaction between colours created a sense of depth and movement throughout her oeuvre. Sonia's work extends to painting, textile design and stage set design.

Friend:

Robert Delaunay

Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) was a French painter. He was best known for his vibratory paintings of modern life. Interested in conveying a sense of dynamism in his work, he often chose icons of human progress as motifs for his paintings.

Friend:

Aleksandra Ekster

Aleksandra Ekster (1882-1949) was a Russian-French artist and designer. She was one of the most famous Russian avant-garde female painters that gained international recognition. She divided her life between Kiev, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vienna, and Paris, thus strengthening the cultural ties between Russia and Europe. In this way and through her own artistic achievement, she did much to further the Russian avant-garde.