Alva (Allweiss), Siegfried

views updated

ALVA (Allweiss), SIEGFRIED

ALVA (Allweiss), SIEGFRIED (Solomon ; 1901–1973), painter. He was born in Berlin, but lived in Galicia until the age of ten, and was given a strict Jewish education. Alva studied music and later drawing and after a period of travel in Europe studied painting in Paris. Shortly before the outbreak of World War ii he settled in England. His works include an illustrated and decorated version of the first chapter of Genesis, a series of studies of the Prophets in lithograph, serigraphs, and oil paintings on several subjects from Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Some of his paintings are symbolist and abstract. Characteristic of his style is the use of a distinctive brush stroke and aerial perspective. He wrote an autobiography, With Pen and Brush: The Autobiography of a Painter (1973).

bibliography:

Alva: Paintings and Drawings (1942), introduction by M. Collis; R. Gindertael, Alva (Fr., 1955); Y. Haezraḥi, Alva (Heb., 1954).

More From encyclopedia.com