Bernard Baruch Zakheim 1896 - 1985, was recognized as a talented artist before the age of fifteen in Warsaw, Poland where he studied with Enrico Glicenstein.

He created important works in many medias for the next seven decades. After multiple escapes from German prison camps during World War I, he journeyed from Paris to San Francisco in 1920. There he owned and operated a successful Art Deco furniture factory.

In 1930 he worked with Diego Rivera in Mexico City. He returned to Paris to paint, and upon returning to California, won a competition in 1931 to create the first public mural in the state, a fresco at the Jewish Community Center, San Francisco. He also designed and built a fountain at the Center.

In 1978 Ed Davis in The Artist, Portrait of a Painting, wrote the following about Bernard Zakheim.

"Integrity, conviction, and uncompromising devotion to purpose have been all important in the life of this artist. To create, to express, to enlighten through the drama of his art Zakheim has sacrificed all else. His is a life of purpose and choice, a life in which he will do anything but sacrifice his talent and his art to the standards of other men's lives."

Some of the artist's other public works include:

Two W.P.A. murals in Mineola and Rusk, Texas, 1930's

The Coit Tower murals (with other artists), 1933,

University of California Medical School, San Francisco 10 murals 1934 -38,

Jewish Historical Museum, Warsaw, Poland,1961,

Six large wood sculptures forming a monument of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, purchased by Mount Sinai Memorial Park, Los Angeles, 1969.

Bernard Baruch Zakheim has also left us a major collection of fine paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, as well as extensive writings and poetry.

Ref: Artists In California, 1986 - 1940 Eden Milton Hughes, Artists Of The American West, California Art Research, Who's Who In American Art, Who's Who on the Pacific Coast.