Ben Uri Collection

The Rabbi

Artist information

Name Erno Erb (1878-1943)

Born Lemberg, Austria

Died Lviv, Poland

Find more work in the collection by this artist

Erno Erb was born in 1878 into a family of assimilated Lviv Jews in Lemberg, Austria. He spent almost all his life in Lviv and Truskavets, painting urban motifs and genre scenes, populated with Ukrainian peasants and orthodox Jews, as well as landscapes and still lifes, in oil, watercolor and pastels. His oils, characterized by rich, thickly-textured paint, have been compared with the works of the German impressionist, Max Liebermann. Erb exhibited regularly at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Lviv and Krakow and in Zachęta in Warsaw. In 1929 he participated in the Universal National Exhibition in Poznań, and in 1932 in the Polish Art Exhibition in Buffalo. He probably died during the liquidation of the Lwów (now Lviv) Ghetto in June 1943. His work is held in the Ben Uri Collection in the UK, as well as in the National Museum in Krakow, the Jewish Institute in Warsaw, the Historical Museum in Krakow, the Museum of Ukrainian Art in Lviv and the Lviv Picture Gallery.

Object Details

Object type painting

Medium oil on panel

Materials and techniques oil (medium) panel (support)

Unframed 33.5 x 47 cm

Framed 39 x 52 cm

Signed (lower left): 'E. Erb'

Acquisition purchased

Accession number 1987-91

Display status not on display

Erb spent almost all his life in Lviv and Truskavets, painting urban motifs and genre scenes, populated with Ukrainian peasants and orthodox Jews, as well as landscapes and still lifes, in oil, watercolor and pastels. His oils, characterized by rich, thickly-textured paint, have been compared with the works of the German impressionist, Max Liebermann.

Selected exhibition history

1946
Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture & Drawings
Ben Uri Art Gallery


1990
Shtetl Scenes: A Selection from the Society's Permanent Collection together with New Acquisitions
Ben Uri Art Gallery


1997
The Art of Prayer: Featuring Rabbis, Scholars and Scribes
Etz Chayim Gallery


2018
Exodus: masterworks from the Ben Uri Collection
Bushey Museum


Literature

Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in Camden (London: The Public Catalogue Foundation, 2013), p.13 (illus. included); Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 40.

The Rabbi by Erno Erb

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The Rabbi by Erno Erb

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