The drawing was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995.
"..active in the [Kovno] ghetto and closely associated with [Esther] Lurie was Josef Schlesinger. From the ghetto's first days he sought out the Paint and Sign Workshop, where he designed projects and most likely took part in several clandestine art exhibitions there. Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1919, Schlesinger began his training at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1938. Within the year he and his mother left German-occupied Czechoslovakia for Kovno, where his father managed a textile factory. There he continued his studies at the Arts Institute until his ghetto imprisonment" [Klein, Dennis B., ed The Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1997, p. 169]
Black ink portrait; image of man, head turned three-quarters right. verso: left of center, inscription in Hebrew, in pencil
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overall: Height: 4.330 inches (10.998 cm) | Width: 3.540 inches (8.992 cm)
Drawing of a man in the Kovno ghetto