Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita

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Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (Amsterdam, June 6, 1868 - Auschwitz, ca. February 11, 1944 )

In the years before the Second World War, Jessurun de Mequita was a highly regarded graphic artist, whose pupils included the now renowned Mauritis Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). In the postwar years, de Mequita was largely forgotten. Thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Escher, who regarded him as both a mentor and a friend, his name has survived and is currently receiving growing attention.

Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita was born into a Jewish family living in Amsterdam. Though a member of a tightly knit Sephardic community, a minority among Dutch Jews, de Mesquita, like most of his contemporaries, was not religiously observant. His father, a secondary school teacher of Hebrew and German, died when Sam or Sampie, as he was called, was five. At the age of fourteen, the young de Mesquita applied to the Rijksakademie in pursuit of his artistic interests, only to be rejected. Deeply disappointed, he apprenticed himself to an acting city architect, for whom he worked for two years before entering a technical school with the intention of becoming an architect himself. He soon turned, however, to the pedagogy and, in 1889, received a teacher's certificate, which would later enable him to support his family.

Over the next years, however, it was to art that de Mesquita principally devoted himself, experimenting with various techniques and mediums. Though known primarily for his woodblock prints, he also produced etchings, lithographs, watercolors, drawings; his applied art consisted mostly of material designs. There are birds, exotic animals, plants and flowers, and fantastical representations, both humorous and grim. Among de Mesquita's most beautiful works are his portraits, particularly his self-portraits.

With Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Netherlands in May, 1940, de Mesquita, already in poor health, was forced to lead a secluded life, limiting his work largely to sketches. In the winter of 1944, on either January 31 or February 1, the occupying German forces entered the home of the de Mesquita family in Watergraafsmeer, now part of Amsterdam, and apprehended him, his wife Elisabeth, and their only son Jaap. Transported to Auschwitz, Samuel Jessurun and Elisabeth were sent to the gas chambers within days of their arrival on February 11; Jaap perished in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt on March 20. Escher and some of Jaap’s friends were successful in rescuing some of the works that had remained in the de Mesquita home.

[edit] Reference:

Es, Jonieke van. Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (1894-1944): Takenaar, graficus, sierkunstenaar, Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds; 2005 (in Dutch)