The Accordion Player

Issachar Ber Ryback was a painter, a graphic artist, a sculptor, a scene painter and an art critic. He was born on February 2 1897 in Yelisavetgrad (now Kirovograd Ukraine). At the age of 11 he entered the Yelisavetgrad courses for scene painters, and having completed the course, was working since 1909 in an artel (co-operative unit) that dealt with interior paintings of public and church buildings. In 1926 Ryback relocated to Paris. Immediately, he began to play an outstanding role in the artistic life of the French capital, which was evidenced by his two one-man exhibitions in the Galerie aux Quatre Chemins (1928) and in the Galerie L'Art Contemporain (1929). His painting style underwent changes in that period: Ryback passed from the Cubist stylistics to the Expressionist colorist painting a la Ecole de Paris. Ryback passed away, on December 22, 1935.