Natan Al'tman

Nathan Isaevich Altman (Russian: Натан Исаевич Альтман, romanized: Natan Isayevich Altman) (1889–1970) was a virtuoso Ukraine-born artist, notable for his avant-garde contributions to painting, sculpture, illustration, caricature, cartoons, stage design, and Jewish graphic art. In Paris, he joined the burgeoning Russian avant-garde group Soyuz Molodyozhi with artists Kazimir Malevich, David Burliuk, and Marc Chagall, known for pioneering Suprematism, Russian Futurism, and an often thematically Jewish mix of Fauvist and Cubist-inflected Expressionism, respectively. These influences would later inform Altman's work, which combined Cubo-Futurist and Constructivist elements, especially the former in his acclaimed 1914 painting: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova.

For about a decade, Altman rivaled Chagall in the Russian Jewish art renaissance. In 1911, he painted Evreiskie pokhorony (Jewish Funeral) to acclaim. In 1916, he founded the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts.

From 1918–24, he began designing sets, which led him to the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre. In 1923, he published his first book of Jewish graphic art for the limited edition Evreiskaia Grafika (Jewish Graphics). In 1925, he served as production designer for the 100-minute silent film Jewish Luck, starring Solomon Mikhoels, and filmed in Altman's hometown, it was based on the writing of Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Babel.