Quick Facts
Biography
Jerzy Bitter (Jurek Bitter; April 4, 1941, in Lviv – February 7, 2020) was a Polish-American painter, known for his works depicting the Holocaust themes.
Biography
Jerzy Bitter was born on April 4, 1941, in Lviv. His mother, Cecylia Bitter (1912-2005), née Hirschfeld, was born on July 31, 1912, in Przemyśl. She was an economist and nutrition technologist. His father, Marek Bitter (c. 1903–1965), in the post-war period was an activist of the Central Committee of Polish Jews, and died in 1965 . The family was not religious and adhered to communist and socialist ideals.
On September 1, 1939, following the German invasion of Poland, the family moved to Lviv, which was occupied by the Germans in 1941. The family relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, Cecylia Bitter escaped with Jerzy and initially hid him with her former teacher, Maria Strasburger, and later Zofia Czerny on Warsaw's Aryan side.
After the war, the family returned to Warsaw. Jerzy studied at the Warsaw University of Technology, earning a master's degree in chemistry in 1965. Around 1965, he moved to Israel to begin doctoral studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science (1965-1967). A tragic motorcycle accident in Israel at around the age of 25 meant he was unable to continue his chemical studies; he forgot his knowledge in chemistry. In 1968, he immigrated to the United States and began art studies at the Art Students League of New York and New York University, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1975. He painted with only one hand. In 2019, he fell in his studio and had his leg amputated due to a blood clot. He died at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Artistic career
Jerzy Bitter began painting as part of therapy after his accident.
He left behind a legacy of about 250 paintings, most of which depict the theme of the Holocaust, often including his daughter, with only a few depicting other themes, including several of his dog, Pinocchio. He had his studio at the corner of 52nd Street and 10th Avenue in New York City.
In 2021, the "Upstairs Gallery at Congregation Shomrei Emunah in Montclair" organized a retrospective exhibition of his paintings. His work is in the permanent collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (thanks to Henry and Rosa Segal Foundation) in Washington, D.C.
Personal life
Jerzy married during his studies at New York University and had a daughter, Eva, in 1980. He lived and worked in New York City. He wrote memoirs. Together with his mother, he wrote the book "Visions and stories of a childhood in the Holocaust." Smithsonian Institution has an archive tape with his interview.
