Josif Majzner's ancestors came from
Sudetenland, now the
Czech Republic, to
Serbia at the end of the 18th or the early 19th century. His father was
Stojan Novaković's collaborator and deputy
librarian at the
National Library of Serbia in Belgrade. He attended the best art academies in the 1930s in
Europe. Just before the outbreak of
Second World War, he joined the
Yugoslav National Movement and during the war he bequeathed his father's archives to the
National Library of Serbia. At the war's end, he resolved not to stay in a usurped country with the arrival of
communism, went to
Italy, Alexander Dzigurski). In 1947, he left
Rome for
Buenos Aires in
Argentina. In the late 1950s, he moved to
New York City, where he worked for a museum restoring old paintings. In the early 1960s, he left New York and came to
Montreal where he opened an
atelier on Clark Street where students gathered evenings in cafés. Art students from
École des beaux-arts de Montréal would seek art lessons from him. He was always ready to share his knowledge with young people. A few of his Montreal students became renowned painters like Armand Tatossian , his older sister Rose Tatossian, and Dubravko Raos among many others. In 1999, his
atelier caught fire, and he died of smoke inhalation. ==Works==