
Zeev Ben-Zvi (; 1904–1952) was a Polish-Israeli sculptor born in
Ryki
Ryki is a town in the Lublin Voivodeship in eastern Poland, capital of Ryki County. It has 9,767 inhabitants (as of 2007). It is situated between Warsaw and Lublin. Ryki belongs to Lesser Poland, and historically is part of ''Ziemia Stężycka' ...
,
Congress Poland
Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
, whose work influenced a generation of sculptors.
Biography
Born Beniamin Kujawski, Zeev Ben-Zvi studied at
Academy of Fine Art in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
. In 1923, he
immigrated
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...
to
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine.
After ...
, where he studied at the
Bezalel School of Art in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
from 1923 to 1924.
When the
New Bezalel School opened, he taught sculpture there from 1926 to 1927. In 1937, he travelled to Paris and then to London from 1937 to 1938.
He specialized in portrait heads in beaten copper and mounded plaster, which he treated in a cubist manner. In 1947, he created the monument ''"In Memory of the Children of the Diaspora"'' in
Mishmar Haemek.
Awards and recognition
* In 1953, Ben Zvi received the
Dizengoff Prize for Sculpture.
* Also in 1953, he was awarded the
Israel Prize
The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor.
History
Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...
, for sculpture,
being the inaugural year of the prize, and was accordingly the first artist to be awarded this honor.
See also
*
List of Israel Prize recipients
This is an incomplete list of recipients of the Israel Prize from the inception of the Prize in 1953 - 2025.
List
For each year, the recipients are, in most instances, listed in the order in which they appear on the official Israel Prize website ...
*
List of Polish Jews
*
Ben-Zvi
Further reading
* Newman, Elias, Art in Palestine, Siebel Company, publishers, New York 1939
* Gamzu, H., Ben-Zvi, Sculptures, 1955
References
External links
*
*
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design alumni
Academic staff of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design
Israel Prize in sculpture recipients
20th-century Israeli sculptors
Israeli modern sculptors
Polish modern sculptors
Jewish Polish sculptors
Polish emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
People from Ryki
Jews from Mandatory Palestine
Jewish Israeli sculptors
1904 births
1952 deaths
Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw alumni
20th-century Polish sculptors
Polish male sculptors
20th-century Israeli male artists
Burials at Har HaMenuchot
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