Draft:Max Jacob Shacknow

Max Jacob Shacknow artist, philantropist, and busineman created more than 2500 paintings and pencil on canvas drawings before he passed away on March 23, 2013. One of seven brothers born into a Russian immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York. He joined the Navy for three years, retiring with the rank of Seaman 2nd Class in December 1945, after a tour aboard aircraft carrier USS Randolf.

In 1950, Max enrolled in "Artists' Illustrators School" where he spent two years learning the basics of his artistic craft. Art was always his passion, his determined avocation, while he simultaneously spent the next 30 years building a textile brokerage firm in lower Manhattan. Max's lifelong dream was to build an art museum, a goal he accomplished with founding of the Schacknow Museum of Fine Arts, Inc, a Florida charitable organization in Plantation, Florida in 2000. The museum sponsored the works of many artists, sculptors and photographers, exhibiting the work of people in their artistic careers and the art of the "Sunday Painter". Max's philantrophy was boundless, he made contributions to the community and local organizations with his time, his soul and his money.

He never sold any of his works of art, they "were just for exhibition" of visual art, and only a handful were classical oil paintings. In the mid-eighties Max gave up painting, almost exclusively penciling highly detailed drawings using only a #2 pencil on stretched canvas in a Seurat-like appearance to many of his creations. On behalf of us who reside in or visit southeastern Florida, we appreciate what you have accomplished and we can now share you with the world.



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