Portrait of Solomon Mikhaylovich Mikhoels

Half-length image of an elderly man with a raised head and wavy hair, a high forehead with balding hairs, raised eyebrows, with a wide flat nose with a crook and strongly pushed forward lower lip and chin, in a loose shirt with open collar, holding a curly head child in his arms. The lower part of the torso is covered with drapery, mounted on a plinth. Solomon Mikhailovitch Mikhoels (4(16).031890-13.01.1948), People's Artist of the USSR (1939) , was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II. However, as Joseph Stalin pursued an increasingly anti-Semitic line after the War, Mikhoels's position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution from the Soviet state. In 1948, Mikhoels was murdered on the orders of Stalin and the murder was disguised as a traffic accident.