Ephraim Moses Lilien

Maurycy "Ephraim Moses" Lilien (Polish: [mawˈrɨt͡sɨ ˈliljɛn]; Hebrew: אפרים משה ליליין; 23 May 1874 – 18 July 1925) was a Polish-Jewish Art Nouveau illustrator and printmaker particularly noted for his art on Jewish themes and his influence on the Bezalel school art movement. He is sometimes called the "first Zionist artist."^[1]

Ephraim Moses Lilien אפרים משה ליליין
Born	Maurycy Lilien 23 May 1874 Drohobycz, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (modern Drohobych, Ukraine)
Died	18 July 1925 (age 51) Badenweiler, Republic of Baden, Weimar Republic
Education	Academy of Arts in Kraków Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Known for	Illustrator and print-maker
Movement	Bezalel school

Biography

Maurycy Lilien was born in 1874 in Drohobycz, Galicia,^[2] then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1889–1893, Lilien learned painting and graphic techniques at the Academy of Arts in Kraków. He studied under Polish painter Jan Matejko from 1890 to 1892.^[3]

As a member of the Early Zionist Movement, Lilien traveled to Ottoman Palestine several times between 1906 and 1918,^[4] but did not settle.

Lilien attended the Fifth Zionist Congress, held in Basel, as a member of the Democratic Fraction — a group formed in opposition to the Religious Zionist, General Zionist, and Revisionist Zionist factions through its support for developing a secular national culture.^[5] In 1905, at the Seventh Zionist Congress, in Basel, he, along with Boris Schatz, became a member of a committee formed to help establish the Bezalel Art School.^[2] As part of that work he accompanied Schatz to Jerusalem to gather inspiration.^[1]

Art career

Lilien was one of the two artists to accompany Boris Schatz to what is now Israel in 1906 for the purpose of establishing Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and taught the school's first class in 1906. Although his stay in the country was short-lived, he left his indelible stamp on the creation of an Eretz Israel style, placing biblical subjects in the Zionist context and oriental settings, conceived in an idealized Western design. In the first two decades of the century, Lilien's work served as a model for the Bezalel group.

Lilien is known for his famous photographic portrait of Theodor Herzl. He often used Herzl as a model, considering his features a perfect representation of the "New Jew."^[6] In 1896, he received an award for photography from the avant-garde magazine Jugend. Lilien illustrated several books. In 1923, an exhibition of his work opened in New York.^[4]

Lilien's illustrated books include Juda (1900), Biblically themed poetry by Lilien's Christian friend, Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen, and Lieder des Ghetto (Songs of the Ghetto) (1903), Yiddish poems by Morris Rosenfeld translated into German.

Lilien died in Badenweiler, Germany in 1925. A street in the Nayot neighborhood of Jerusalem is named for him.

Gallery

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  "Sunflower" (Sonnenblume), Jugend, Berlin, 1893
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  Ex libris Stefan Zweig c. 1900
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  "The Queen of Sabbath", from Juda, Berlin, 1900-1
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  "The Silent Song" from Juda, 1900–1.^[7]
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  'May our eyes behold your return in mercy to Zion, Fifth Zionist Congress souvenir, Basel, 1901.^[8]
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  Theodor Herzl in Basel, 1901
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  Ost und West, 1903
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  Homage to the victims of the first Chișinău pogrom, 1903.^[9]
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  Jewish child from Lieder des Ghetto, 1903
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  "Zion", Lieder des Ghetto, 1903
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  Ex libris Boris Schatz, 1905
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  Emblem of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, 1906
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  An Allegorical Wedding: Sketch for a carpet Triptych (from right to left): Exile, Marriage, Redemption, 1906
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  Theodor Herzl dressed as an Arab, 1906
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  Joshua, 1908
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  Abraham, 1908
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  Balaam, [1908]
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  Dybbuk, [1908]
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  Kotel (Western Wall), 1910
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  In the Library, engraving, 1915
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  Sofer of the Torah, sewing its parchments, engraving, 1915
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  Learning Talmud, engraving, 1915
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  Figures, photograph, c. 1918
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  The Samaritan, engraving, c. 1920