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Boris Deutsch (1892–1978) was a muralist and painter who worked primarily in Los Angeles, California. He was born to a Jewish family in Krasnogorka shtetl, then part of the Russian Empire. Deutsch is known for his work in modernist paintings which were heavily influenced by German expressionalism, portraits, and printmaking with a focus on monotypes and lithography.
Deutsch obtained his education at the Bloom Academy of Fine Arts in Riga and completed post graduate work in Berlin, Germany. At the start of World War One, he was drafted into the Russian army and his mother helped him falsify identification documents and desert. After deserting the Russian Army, Deutsch went first to Harbin in China and then Japan. In 1916 he immigrated to the United States landing in Seattle before relocating to Los Angeles. There he joined the Art Student's League and worked for Paramount Pictures in the special effects department. While in Los Angeles Deutsch also taught at the Otis Art Institute for six years. In the years following 1924 Deutsch organized his first solo exhibitions and became highly regarded as a portraitist alongside his other artworks. In 1929 he decorated the interior of the Floridian Hotel in Miami Beach and during the 1930s he won many of the prizes earned over his career. During the Great Depression Deutsch was employed by the Federal Arts Program designing murals for post offices across California and New Mexico. Among his commissions sponsored by the New Deal project was the Terminal Annex Post Office in Los Angles. In 1946 he won the Pepsi-Cola art competition with his work What Atomic War Will Do to You. Deutsch is also known for his role in directing the fifteen-minute experimental and expressionist film Lullaby starring Michael Visaroff in 1929. Deutsch died on January 16, 1978, in Los Angeles.
