The Galician-born painter Ben-Zion came to the United States in 1920. Dedicated to the revival of the Hebrew language, he published poems and fairy tales in Hebrew under his full name, Ben-Zion Weinman. (He later shortened it, remarking that artists needed only one name.) In the 1930s, depressed by the limited audience in the United States for Hebrew literature, he devoted himself exclusively to painting. He was a member of the avant-garde expressionist group called “The Ten,” which included Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb, but he did not follow their path to abstract expressionism and remained loyal to figurative art.
This intricately decorated textile, possibly used as a Torah cover, was produced in Prague around 1600. Four squares adorn its center, the top two containing vases ringed by flowers and vines and the…
In the wake of the Russian Revolution and the lifting of restrictions on Jewish publishing, Jewish theater companies revolutionized theater and scene design and experimented with modernist approaches…