Yehuda Pen was a Jewish

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...

-Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

ian artist-painter, a teacher and an outstanding figure of the Jewish Renaissance in the Russian and Belarusian art of the beginning of 20th century. Pen was, arguably, the most significant Jewish painter in the Russian Empire, whose achievement parallels the contribution of Mark Antokolski

Mark Antokolski

Mark Matveyevich Antokolski was a Russian sculptor who was admired for psychological complexity of his historical images and panned for occasional lapses into sentimentalism.-Biography:...

 to sculpture.

Yehuda Pen was born on May 24 (on June 5 Old Style) 1854 in the city of Novoalexandrovsk (nowadays Zarasai

Zarasai

Zarasai is a city in northeastern Lithuania, surrounded by many lakes and rivers: to the southwest of the city is Zarasas, north – Zarasaitis, southeast – Baltas, and east – Griežtas. Zarasaitis and Griežtas are connected by Laukesa rivulet....

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, also known in Yiddish as Ezhereni). Early having been deserted, since 1867 worked as apprentice in the painter house in Dvinsk (nowadays Daugavpils

Daugavpils

Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. Daugavpils literally means "Daugava Castle". With a population of over 100,000, it is the second largest city in the country after the capital Riga, which is located some...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

). In 1879 he moved to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, in 1880 has acted in the Academy of arts. Studied at P. Chistyakov. Upon graduating from the Academy (1886) veins in Dvinsk and Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

.

In 1891 he settled in Vitebsk

Vitebsk

Vitebsk, also known as Viciebsk or Vitsyebsk , is a city in Belarus, near the border with Russia. The capital of the Vitebsk Oblast, in 2004 it had 342,381 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth largest city...

 and a year later opened first private school of drawing and painting in Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 - the Jewish art school. Pen's pupils were Ilya Mazel, Yefim Minin, Oskar Meshchaninov, Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

, Ossip Zadkine

Ossip Zadkine

Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...

, El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky

, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...

.

In 1927 Pen was conferred the rank of the Deserved Jewish artist.

The artist was killed at home in Vitebsk at night February 28/March 1, 1937. The circumstances of his murder remain unknown. There is speculation that he was murdered because of his connection to his former student, Marc Chagall.

After Pen's death a gallery of his works was created in Vitebsk. Today, Pen's works are stored in the Vitebsk art museum and the National art museum of Belarus.

External links

• Bio at Vitebsk City informational portal
• Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art
  Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art
  Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art was an art museum in Vitebsk, Belarus organized in 1918 by Marc Chagall, Kazimir Malevich and Alexander Romm. In 1921 it exhibited 120 paintings "representing all the movements of the contemporary art from the Academic Realism to Impressionism to Suprematism". In the...