Using loosely handled paint and sweeping brushstrokes, the expressionist painter Mané-Katz creates an atmospheric seascape, conjuring up the drama and movement of a small boat tossed by the waves. Mané-Katz was born in the Ukraine in 1894 to an Orthodox Jewish family and originally intended to be a Rabbi. In 1913–1914 he studied alongside Chaïm Soutine in Paris. Influenced by Rembrandt, the Fauves and, briefly, by Cubism, he returned to Ukraine after the outbreak of the First World War and was appointed professor at the Academy after the 1917 revolution. In 1921 Mané-Katz returned to Paris, focusing on studies of the Eastern-European ghetto but also painting landscapes and flower studies in an expressionist and baroque style. After the fall of France in 1940 he fled to New York, later returning to Paris.