Painter Maurice Minkowski was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Warsaw, then in the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1888; a childhood illness left him deaf and mute. He showed early promise in drawing and was privately tutored prior to studying at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts between 1900 and 1905, from where he graduated with a gold medal. He came to fame as a chronicler of Polish Jewish life during the last years of the Czarist regime and the Jewish refugee, dislocated as a result of political and social upheaval, is a recurring theme in his work in paintings with titles including 'Young Exiles' and 'After the Pogrom'. After documenting pogroms in Odessa, he made a study tour through Germany and Austria, before returning to Warsaw. In 1908 he went to Paris, where he married and settled, although he frequently returned to Poland to participate in open-air painting workshops in Kazimierz Dolny, Sniatyn and Kraśnik. His paintings were exhibited in Vilnius and Łódź, as well as at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art. In 1930, Minkowski was in Buenos Aires, Argentina preparing for an exhibition of his works overseas, the first stop on a trip to Brazil, the USA, Canada, and ultimately, Palestine. Maurice Minkowski died in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 23 November 1930. He was killed in a road accident after failing to hear an oncoming tram, and the Buenos Aires exhibition was presented posthumously as a tribute under the auspices of the Jewish Association of Argentina. The largest extant collection of his paintings belongs to the Argentinian Foundation IWO; his work can also be found in public collections including the Jewish Museum in New York and the Tel Aviv and Israel Museums.