MAKSIM TSE

MAKSIM TSE (b. October 25, 1898)

            The adopted name of Menakhem-Mendl Tsibulnik, he was born in Kiev.  He attended religious primary school until age ten.  He later studied in a senior high school and graduated at age sixteen with distinction.  He studied painting at the Kiev Art School.  He excelled in his landscapes of Kiev nature, with portraits, and with Jewish compositions.  He volunteered to join the military at age nineteen, but several months later he departed for the United States.  He graduated from the National Academy of Art in New York.  He took part in collective exhibitions and gave lectures on art at various clubs.  After America entered WWI, he was traveling to Russia through Japan, where remained stuck for two years during which time he studied Japanese decorative arts.  Following the armistice, he returned to America and settled in Los Angeles, where he painted portraits and landscapes of California’s nature.  In 1922 he paid a visit to New York.  Under the influence of Avrom Reyzen, he began writing essays on art and artists for the latter’s journal Nay-yidish (New Yiddish).  He later wrote such essays for: Otem (Breath), Di tsukunft (The future), Di feder (The pen), and Tog (Day)—in New York; among other serials.  He also composed stories.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3.

Yankev Kahan