Mina Byck Wepper

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Mina Byck Wepper was a Romanian-Jewish modern painter. She studied at the Fine Art School in Bucharest with the esteemed artist Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck and in Munich with Franz von Stuck. Mina Byck’s painting style was influenced by Secession art, and specifically by the German Jugendstil movement. In Galant Still Life, this is seen by the attention the artist gives to aspects of decoration and design, whereas the style keeps a certain predilection towards expressionism. Decorative ceramic figurines become animated in the painting. A playful yet critical act, it is suggestive of the artist’s engagement with art historicity, the intricacies of social relations, and the complexity of domestic life. She was an active participant in the modernist artistic circles of the 1930s, receiving critical recognition at the time, opening many solo exhibitions in Bucharest and participating in group presentations. In the 1932 exhibition The nude in contemporary painting, she exhibited alongside known figures such as Marcel Iancu and Margareta Sterian. In 1937, she exhibited at the International Exhibition in Paris. Mina Byck’s career was then cut short by the mounting antisemitism, being deeply traumatised by the events of the Bucharest pogrom in 1941, when over 100 members of the Jewish community were murdered.