Mojżesz Kisling (1891, Kraków – 1953, Sanary-sur-Mer), Roses

oil on canvas, 26 × 26 cm
signed lower right: “Kisling”

Provenance:
– Christie’s auction, 20th Century Art, London South Kensington, July 3, 1998, lot 36
– private collection, Poland


Exhibited:
– “Kisling: The Glitter of Montparnasse,” Villa la Fleur, Konstancin-Jeziorna, September 21, 2024 – March 30, 2025

Reproduced in:
– Jean Kisling, “Kisling 1891–1953,” vol. I, Turin 1971, ill. p. 224.
– Artur Winiarski, “Kisling. The Radiance of Montparnasse,” exhibition catalog, Warsaw 2024, cat. no. 132, p. 260.


“[.. .] Kisling’s painting pulsates with a spontaneously sincere, sensually joyful, and very beautiful love of life—this is the ideological leitmotif of his artistic endeavor, for this is the dominant trait of his emotional temperament. And this is how he relates, in general, to the reality that surrounds him. However, in accordance with Buffon’s saying, this does not yet define Kisling’s individuality, for viewing the world through the rainbow prism of a kaleidoscopic joie de vivre is as old as the world itself and as common as the multimillion-strong human race. It is only through the brush, palette, and canvas, therefore, that Kisling is able to assert his own creative “self.” Z. St. Klingsland, “Kisling,” in *Wiadomości Literackie*, 1935, no. 38, p. 8.