Maurice (Mischa) Askenazy - Portrait of a Woman 1920s P3053

Maurice (Mischa) Askenazy was a California painter born in Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine) in 1888. At the age of four, he emigrated with his parents to New York City. By 1913 he was studying art at the National Academy of Design where he won a scholarship that brought him to France and Italy. In 1928 he settled in Los Angeles and here pursued a long and successful career in art until his death in 1961. Askenazy's style places him in the realm of modernism, his canvases appearing to show the influence of Cezanne. This post-impressionist style translates very successfully in his portraits, still-lifes, and landscapes and makes him one of California's most accomplished representational painters of the post-modern period.