 | Abel PANN (PFEFFERMANN) 1883 — 1963Абель ПАН (ФЕДЕРМАН) • Абель ПАН (ФЕДЕРМАН)Abel Pann [Pfeffermann] was born in Kreslavka, Vitebsk province, Belarus (today’s Kraslava, Latvia) in 1883. His father was a rabbi and the head of a yeshiva. At an early age he showed interest in drawing and studied at Odesa art school in 1898. In 1903, he moved to Paris and continued his studies at the Grande Chaumiere art academy. One of his teachers was the French painter Adolphe William Bourguereau and another Yehuda Pan, teacher of Chagall. His works aroused much interest, winning him prizes and medals. His works were exhibited together with those of Renoir and Matisse. He contributed to journals of humor and was a member of the "Salon des Humoristes" in Paris. In 1913 Abel went to Palestine and taught at the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, for a year. A few weeks before World War I broke out, he traveled to Paris, intending to return to Palestine shortly afterwards. When it became known that pogroms had taken place in Russia, he drew paintings on that theme, his purpose being to print reproductions of them. In 1916 he painted the series, "Road of Tears", drawings and lithographs of the Russian pogroms. In 1917, he traveled to the United States where the Union of Museums organized exhibitions of his works in several cities. He became known as a Jewish artist. In 1920, he returned to Palestine to settle permanently and until 1924 taught again at Bezalel. In 1921, he established the first lithographic installation in Palestine. Even before that date he began to paint biblical themes but thereafter dedicated his work mainly to the Bible. He began to use pastel colors, whereas formerly he had painted in oil. In the twenties and thirties he held many exhibitions in Western and Central Europe. In the course of World War II, he drew paintings of the Holocaust, but at the same time continued to paint themes of Eretz Yisrael. He died in Jerusalem in 1963. |
