Born into a religious family, Emanuel (Ohel) Mane-Katz was educated in a cheder and yeshiva. His father, a synagogue superintendent, dreamed of his son becoming a rabbi, but the 16-year-old decided to become an artist. After studying at drawing schools in Kiev and Vilnius, he came to Paris in 1913. On the eve of the First World War, Mane-Katz returned to Ukraine and was appointed professor at the Kharkiv Academy of Fine Arts. However, the young man did not stop there and returned to Paris in 1921 after visiting Baku, Tbilisi, Moscow, Minsk and Warsaw. He travelled to Palestine, Egypt, Syria and European countries. He spent the Second World War in the USA and in 1942 took part in the Modern Christs exhibition in New York, where the Crucifixion became the symbol of the Jewish people being destroyed by the Nazis. Later, Mane-Katz repeated this theme in his sculpture Jesus. After the war, the artist lived in Paris, then moved to the city of Haifa in Israel.
In 1929 and 1937, E. Mane-Katz visited Lithuania in 1929 and 1929, because he wanted "to go to a land where Jewish life is intense, to be among the Jews, to walk around the towns, to look at Jewish life" (E. Mane-Katz, 1937, Review, 15:4). During his travels, the artist mainly painted types of local Jews, scenes of Jewish life and landscapes. His work is full of portraits of rabbis, perhaps in this way the artist realised his parents' unfulfilled dream of seeing their son rabbi. Mane-Katz's work is inspired by his knowledge of Torah and Talmudic studies in the yeshiva, Yiddish folklore and the Kabbalah - the mystical Jewish tradition. The viewer is intrigued by the mysterious old Litvaks embracing the Torah, the enigmatic rabbis studying the Talmud, the Hasidim in the ecstasy of prayer, and is captivated by the emotional scenes of weddings and Jewish festivals, and by the figurative compositions of klezmer figures joyfully spinning on a variety of musical instruments.
Mane-Katz's Expressionist painting is rich with elements of cubism and fauvism. His works become highly decorative and the colours even more transparent after his trip to Palestine: "Palestine gave me a lot... My paintings have developed a lot of new bright colours" (Mane-Katz, ibid., 4). The artist's canvases are reminiscent of oriental carpets, with original ornaments woven with free-waving lines and bright splashes of colour that destroy space. The ornamental nature of the works prevents the viewer from grasping the plot at a glance, and it is only on closer inspection that the colourful 'ornament' transforms into houses, trees, people or bouquets of flowers. A very painterly sculpture by E. Mane-Katz. The figures of shtetls and kibbutzim, cast in bronze, are sculpted with vigorous but soft 'brush strokes'. The artist is particularly concerned with conveying the mood of the moment, so when looking at the sensuous impressionistic sculptures of the musicians of the klezmer ensemble - The Violinist,The Drummer,The Flute Player, and the Cellist, one can hear the folk music of the Jewish people.
Mane-Katz's rich artistic legacy is preserved in a museum named after him in Haifa. His works are held by museums and collectors in the USA, Western Europe and Lithuania.
