Avraham Melnikov (; June 16, 1892 – August 27, 1960) was a sculptor especially notable during the period of the

Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

. His most famous work is the monument "The Roaring Lion" at the

Kfar Giladi Kfar Giladi () is a kibbutz in the Galilee Panhandle of northern Israel. Located south of Metula on the Naftali Mountains above the Hula Valley and along the Blue Line (Lebanon), Lebanese border, it falls under the jurisdiction of Upper Galilee ...

Cemetery in

Tel Hai Tel Hai ( , "Hill of Life") is a name of the former Jewish settlement in northern Galilee, the site of an early battle between Jews and Arabs heralding the growing civil conflict, and of a monument, tourist attraction, and a college. It is curren ...

Biography

Early life

He was born in

Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...

in 1892. He immigrated to Palestine in 1918 as a soldier in the

Jewish Legion The Jewish Legion was a series of battalions of Jewish soldiers who served in the British Army during the First World War. Some participated in the British conquest of Palestine from the Ottomans. The formation of the battalions had several ...

. He began engaging with the art of sculpture from a young age. Following the British capture of Beersheba, he created a statue of General

Edmund Allenby Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, (23 April 1861 – 14 May 1936) was a senior British Army Officer (armed forces), officer and imperial governor. He fought in the Second Boer ...

, which was placed in a municipal garden in Beersheba. The statue was destroyed during the

1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, later known as the Great Revolt, the Great Palestinian Revolt, or the Palestinian Revolution, lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought i ...

Art style

Melnikov participated in the

Tower of David The Tower of David (), also known as the Citadel (), is an ancient citadel and contemporary museum, located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The citadel that stands today dates to the Mamluk Sult ...

exhibitions, which took place annually in the 1920s and expressed the spirit of Hebrew art emerging in the Land of Israel. He created a unique style that combined a connection to the roots of the Jewish people with a primitive primordiality, distant from the European heritage, influenced by ancient Assyrian sculpture. This was in contrast with the modern art trends of the ''

Ecole de Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...

''-influenced art, brought by Isaac Frenkel Frenel.

Artistic career in Eretz Israel

Melnikov was elected to the first committee of the Association of Painters and Sculptors in the Land of Israel, alongside Joseph Zaritsky and

Reuven Rubin Reuven Rubin (, ; November 13, 1893 – October 13, 1974) was a Romanian-born Israeli painter and Israel's first ambassador to Romania. Biography Reuven Zelicovici (later Reuven Rubin) was born in Galaţi to a poor Romanian Jewish Hasidic f ...

. In 1925, Melnikov arrived in the Galilee and met with members of the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

under the leadership of

Yitzhak Sadeh Yitzhak Sadeh (; born Izaak Landoberg, August 10, 1890 – August 20, 1952), was the commander of the Palmach and one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel. Biography Sadeh was bo ...

. When he saw the unmarked and exposed graves of the fallen from the 1920

Battle of Tel Hai The Battle of Tel Hai was fought on 1 March 1920 between Arab and Jewish forces at the village of Tel Hai in Northern Galilee. In the course of the event, a Shiite Arab militia, accompanied by Bedouin from a nearby village, entered a Jewish a ...

, he proposed erecting a large-scale sculpture as a memorial. The workers of the Haganah carved a massive stone and dragged it to the burial site.

Boris Schatz Boris Schatz (; Russian language, Russian: Борис Шац; 23 December 1866 – 23 March 1932) was a Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian Jewish artist and sculptor who settled in Palestine. Schatz was the founder of the Bezalel school and would be late ...

, the founder of "

Bezalel In Exodus 31:1-6 and chapters 36 to 39, Bezalel, Bezaleel, or Betzalel (, ''Bəṣalʼēl''), was the chief artisan of the Tabernacle and was in charge of building the Ark of the Covenant, assisted by Oholiab. The section in chapter 31 descr ...

", organized fundraising that helped Melnikov with the costs of creating the monument. For several years, Melnikov labored on the sculpture and created the Roaring Lion monument, which became a national symbol. The monument was officially inaugurated in a ceremony on the 7th of Adar, 22 February 1934.

England

In the 1930s, Melnikov left the Land of Israel for England, however, he did not achieve success and recognition for his art. In London, he sculpted famous personalities, including Arturo Toscanini, Lady Melchett and her son, the statesmen

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940 and ...

and

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

, Lord Conway of Allington, Sarah Churchill, the writer Gilbert Murray, and others. Most of his "English" sculptures (around two hundred) were destroyed in an air raid by the German Luftwaffe during World War II in 1940–41. Only a photograph remains of the sculpture "The Ethiopian Jesus" (plaster, 1949–48), as well as the terracotta sculpture "The Beggar" (date unknown) and the bust of the Yiddish poet Malka Locker (plaster, 1936).https://blog.nli.org.il/melnikov/ How does a hero lion look like? The National Library of Israel blog, Gil Wisallby, 25 February 2019 In 1959, he returned to Israel and died in Haifa a year later, aged 68. He was buried alongside his wife, Charlotte Leib Neusenholz (who died in 1949), in Kfar Giladi, near the base of his famous creation, the Roaring Lion monument. He was survived by his daughter. His statue, "Judah Arising" is in

Ramat Gan National Park Ramat Gan National Park (, ''HaPark HaLe'umi'') is a large urban park in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. It is not actually a national park. History The initiator of the idea of setting up the park was the first mayor of Ramat Ga ...

. His archive is stored in the

National Library of Israel The National Library of Israel (NLI; ; ), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; ), is the library dedicated to collecting the cultural treasures of Israel and of Judaism, Jewish Cultural heritage, heritage. The library holds more ...

Gallery

File:Kedem 23 001-2.jpg, link=, Kedem, people hiding in the underground File:Ahad Haam tomb.JPG, link=,

Ahad Ha'am Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), primarily known by his Hebrew name and pen name Ahad Ha'am (, lit. 'one of the people', ), was a Hebrew journalist and essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. ...

tomb, Trumpeldor Cemetery File:תמונה 1089.jpg, link=, "Judah Arising",

File:PikiWiki Israel 3364 Geography of Israel.jpg, link=, The Roaring Lion, Kfar Giladi

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melnikov, Avraham 1892 births 1960 deaths Immigrants of the Third Aliyah Israeli sculptors Jewish Legion personnel Russian Zionists 20th-century Israeli sculptors 20th-century Israeli Jews