Leon Bibel

Who was Leon Bibel?

Leon Bibel was an American painter and printmaker during the Great Depression. His themes were the social condition of workers and the politics of protest and war, although cityscapes and landscapes were included among his works. He later developed works in wood of especially Jewish themes. These included fanciful miniature buildings influenced by European spice boxes, figures and objects within shadow boxes, and in one case a synagogue ark.

Leon Bibel was born in Poland, growing up in the shtetl of Szczebrzeszyn. He immigrated to the United States with his family. After graduating from Polytechnic High School in San Francisco, he trained at the California School of Fine Arts and apprenticed under the German Impressionist Maria Riedelstein and assisted Bernard Zakheim, on the frescoes of the San Francisco Jewish Community Center and the University of California at San Francisco's Toland Hall. He resided in New York beginning in 1936 as a WPA artist of the Federal Art Project at the Harlem Art Center in New York City. He also taught art at both P.S. 94 and Bronx House.