Maks Hanemann (1882-1940s): A Polish-Jewish Painter in Zakopane

Maks Haneman is one of many polish painters, whose life and work are still unacknowledged, but doubtlessly worth recalling.

He was born in 1882 in Łódź. Between 1907 and 1920 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Then he settled in Zakopane – small village in the Tatra Mountains, where he became a member of the Trade Union of Polish Podhalan Artists and actively participated in the life of the local artist society. He travelled to Egypt and Palestine. His life was tragically cut by the Holocaust in 1940s.

In Hanemann’s paintings (mostly landscapes) one finds picturesque motifs from the Tatra Mountains as well as oriental scenes from Palestine. It would be interesting to look at these paintings in the context of national landscape, highly current in the tradition of polish 19th and early 20th century art, especially actual in Zakopane – a place, which in those years became a symbol of polish culture, synonymous with national style. So, looking through Haneman’s life and work, we can try to answer the question: how this Jewish-Polish artist looked for his own identity, between these two, strong cultural and national traditions. Furthermore, studying the case of Hanemann’s absence in the history of culture in Zakopane, we should ask a question about the fundamental priority of history of art.