Solomon Teitelbaum is a Lithuanian painter who was born on July 10th, 1972, in Kaunas. He graduated from the J. Naujalis Secondary Art School of Kaunas. During the years from 1991 to 1997 he studied painting at the Vilnius Academy of Art. In 1996 he attended the Summer Academy of Art in Salzburg.
The painter has held eighteen personal exhibitions, the most significant of which were the exhibition at the gallery L'Espace Quartier Latin in Paris and the exhibition at the Gallery Metropol in Moscow. He also exhibited his paintings in Austria, the USA, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, China, Latvia, Italy, Germany, etc.
In 1995 he was awarded the V. Vizgirda diploma and prize for the development of ARS group traditions, and in 2012 was awarded diploma and prize at the painting competition of A. Gudaitis.
Solomon Teitelbaum is one of the most talented Lithuanian painters of the new generation. He works in the tradition of Jewish painters who were related to Lithuania. He is influenced by the Vilnius painting school graduates, the Jewish painters of L'é cole de Paris Ch. Soutine, M. Kikoine, P. Kremegne and the ARS group. The expressiveness of Soutine and constructive thinking of Cezanne have an especially strong influence on his art aesthetics. Teitelbaum's painting fascinate by their surprising maturity, integrity and professionalism. They are full of anxiety, a sense of the dramatic nature of the world, and the experience of life's disharmony. It seems that his figure compositions suffer from the external world pressing in. Teitelbaum's paintings are distinguished by an expressive style, an energetic tension, a high culture of composition and colour, and attention to aspects of everyday life. Against the background of post-modern all devouring aesthetics, his paintings fascinate by the fidelity to the ancestral tradition and high-quality painting. The painter is especially strong in landscape painting, in which he demonstrates a strong and subtle sense of colouring.
Professor Antanas Andrijauskas
I only paint from life. When painting nature, literary or even fantastic subjects are born. At present, my principle task is to express light through colour in pictures. How can basic contrasts between light and shadow be properly revealed? The more realistically they are rendered, the more precise and expressive the form becomes. This kind of dialogue with nature prevents the picture from sliding into pure abstraction. A tense colour speaks of the message of the subject itself, it generates unexpected characters, but most often they come into being searching for an emotional motif.
My creative work is always inspired by something old, falling into decline or at the point of vanishing. It can be old houses, century-old trees, and mysterious parks. They are intertwined with surprise histories, forgotten myths and legends. Such motifs are a good soil for painting. All of these things provoke one to constantly create, search, renew and not repeat oneself.
A host of such subjects exists in East Prussia, beside Lithuania, particularly at the seaside, where the elements of nature have been struggling for centuries. They seem to embody the depths of a man’s soul, where good and evil never stop fighting. This is how the trees on a high steep slope of the mountain Semba or a strange birds fight with the Baltic winds, as if a man’s restless soul is doomed to permanently wander between darkness and light, good and evil. In the atmosphere of this land, one can feel the spirit of E. T. A. Hoffmann everywhere, a great romantic, and that of a fabulous world confronting I. Kant’s rationality and vestiges of paganism professed by the extinguished Prussian nation.
In the pictures of the Curonian Spit, a man’s relationship with the elements of nature and their signs, reflecting man’s state, are of great importance. This fragile corner of nature formed by the elements of sand and water can be ruined due to an excessive invasion of civilization. Nature can only embrace a man who tries to listen attentively and immerse in the sublimity and charm of the Curonian Spit.
A man’s inner secret dominates the portraits. Each man is an individual and a unique world. This theme is one of the most significant, difficult and interesting in painting. I make every endeavor to turn the portrayed personality into the reflection of his inner world and his experience. Solomon Teitelbaum.
The exhibition presents an elaborate overview of the painter's creative work and includes not only oil on canvas paintings but also pastel works.
