Self-portrait in a rickshaw, 1943.

The artist is using a fan in addition to the trip in the rickshaw, which was used by Europeans in Shanghai as a means of "air conditioning" (according to the donor Hans Jacoby).David Ludwig Bloch was born in Floss, Bavaria, Germany in 1910. He began to study porcelain painting in 1925, and was employed in this field until 1934, when he became unemployed because of the world economic crisis. He then began studies at the state school for applied painting in Munich. By this time the artist had all ready taken part in exhibitions of the "Jewish Culture Federation of Bavaria." Bloch became a commercial artist and decorator with the department store Salinger in Straubing, but subsequently was fired for being Jewish. He was excluded from studying in Munich for the same reason. During Pogrom Night (Kristallnacht) Bloch was arrested and was in Dachau for 4 weeks, after which he found work with the master painter Heinz Voges in Munich. On April 3, 1940 the artist escaped to Shanghai where he worked in inks and watercolors. He moved to New York in 1949 where he worked as a graphic artist for 26 years. He visited Germany in 1976 for the first time and after this visit the Holocaust became an intense focus of his art.Digital imag