1853 - 1908
Portrait of a Young Girl

Oil on canvas
Image size: 19 x 13 inches
Original gilt frame

Simon Buchbinder (1899-1969) was a Polish painter. Most of his works were genre and historical scenes and portraits done in small formats.

He received his first lessons from his brother, Józef, an established artist who was his senior by fourteen years.

From 1869 to 1871, he attended the “Warsaw School of Drawing”. After graduating, he was able to find a position as a designer at the Vienna State Opera.

Two years later, he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He was there until 1878.

The following year, he moved to Kraków where he obtained a position in the studios of Jan Matejko at the Academy of Fine Arts. Later, Matejko would refer to him as a “painter of great hope”.

In 1883, a scholarship enabled him to study in Munich, where he remained for many years.

In 1897, he moved to Berlin and concentrated on doing portraits. He apparently died there around 1908, although he may have lived until as late as 1924.

He seldom exhibited; notably with the Kraków Society of Friends of Fine Arts during his stay there and at an exhibition of German painters at the Grafton Galleries in 1906.