Sources available online now cover all published volumes—including the biblical (through 332 BCE) and early modern to contemporary periods (1500–2005). Sign up here for free access and updates.
The Artist behind Bars (Self-Portrait)
Boris Penson
1968
Image
Please login or register for free access to Posen Library
Boris Penson, born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is an Israeli painter and teacher. Arrested as a teen for “anti-Soviet activity,” Penson served several years at hard labor. In 1970, Penson was again arrested as a member of the Leningrad Nine, for allegedly plotting to escape Soviet Russia by hijacking a plane, and condemned to ten years imprisonment. In 1972, during Penson’s imprisonment, his work was exhibited at New York’s Jewish Museum. Although much of Penson’s work was confiscated upon his arrest, a number of his paintings were smuggled out of the Soviet Union by a friend. After his release from prison, Penson immigrated to Israel, where he established a studio and continued painting, participating in several international exhibitions.
This lithograph portrays great figures from Jewish history whose first names are Moses. Clockwise from the center: the biblical Moses (evoking Michelangelo’s famous sculpture), Moses Mendelssohn…
Fanny Hensel (1805–1847), the granddaughter of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and financier Daniel Itzig, and sister of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was born in Hamburg into a wealthy…
There was once a little city with few Jewish inhabitants, roughly twenty households, the name [of the city] being Ragusa; and it was self-governing. Now it transpired that in the year 5383 [1622], on…