During the First World War he returned to Russia, at first working and exhibiting in Petrograd; following the October Revolution, he traveled back to Kremenchuk, where he taught art.

[4] There he became friends with Pablo Picasso and other important artists, and was affiliated with the art movement known as the School of Paris;[4] together with other outstanding Jewish artists of that milieu, that include Chaim Soutine, Isaac Frenkel Frenel, Amadeo Modigliani, Marc Chagall and others; he is sometimes considered to be part of a group referred to specifically as the Jewish School of Paris.

His oils feature Hassidic characters, rabbis, Jewish musicians, beggars, yeshiva students and scenes from the East European shtetl.

[4] Four years before his death, the mayor of Haifa, Abba Hushi, provided him with a building on Mount Carmel to house his work, which became the Mané-Katz Museum.

The exhibit includes Mané-Katz's oils, showing a progressive change in style over the years, a signed portrait of the artist by Picasso dated 1932 and a large collection of Jewish ritual objects.