1891-1973 An important painter of the Ecole de Paris, Isaac Dobrinsky was born in Ukraine 1891, moved to Paris 1912 where he remained for the rest of his life. He was initially drawn to sculpture but turned to painting after suffering from illness. From 1912-14 he shared a studio with Chaim Soutine before joining the Foreign Legion, from which he was soon released on account of his health. He returned to Paris, married Vera Kremer 1926 and moved to a larger studio in Montparnasse 1934, enjoying great success before the outbreak of WWII which forced him to flee to the Limousin in order to avoid deportation. He stayed at the Chateau de Chabannes, an orphanage for children whose parents had been deported by the Nazis, working into the 1950s during which time he painted numerous portraits of the staff and children.
Dobrinsky stated, “I don’t wish to be successful, I just wish to understand the mystery of creation”, and those who knew him referred to something almost religious, very intimate and somewhat melancholic in his work. Even though he had a heart condition in his last years, he never stopped painting and when he died, at the age of 81, he was in the middle of a still life painting. The art critic Pierre Levy stated, “…in a room of my future museum, the paintings of Dobrinsky will feature alongside those of Soutine, Kremegne and Kikoine