Alexander Bogen

Alexander Bogen commanded a Jewish partisan unit in the Narocz Forests and spent part of the Nazi occupation making drawings with whatever materials were at hand. Those wartime works, produced under conditions that obliterated most other artistic practice, are the foundation of his reputation. Born Wolf Wulf Bogen on 24 January 1916[[1]]( in Tartu (then Yuryev, Russian Empire), he studied at the Stefan Batory art academy in Vilnius and later attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. When the Germans occupied Vilna in 1941[[1]]( , he became involved with the United Partisan Organisation operating out of the ghetto. He eventually escaped to the forests, where he led an armed unit until liberation. Before leaving Vilna he helped smuggle the poet Abraham Sutzkever, along with artworks, to Moscow. After the war Bogen was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 1947[[1]]( , and a major retrospective at the Łódź State Museum followed in 1950. He emigrated to Israel in 1951, where he built a second career as an educator: he led the art programme at a Tel Aviv school for twenty-two years from 1957 and lectured at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His work crossed social realism[[1]]( , lyrical abstraction, abstract expressionism, and tachisme across more than fifty solo exhibitions in Europe and Israel. His murals Revolt and Holocaust are installed at the Partisan Museum in Tel Aviv. He also illustrated volumes by the Yiddish poets Mordechai Gebirtig and Abraham Sutzkever. Awards included the Polish State Prize (1951[[1]]( ), the Histadrut Prize (1961), and the Shalom Aleichem Prize (1995). He died in Tel Aviv on 20 October 2010[[1]]( , aged 94. Alexander Bogen is known for his wartime drawings, which he produced while commanding a Jewish partisan unit during the Nazi occupation. These works, created with whatever materials he could find, established his reputation. It is difficult to name Alexander Bogen's single "most famous" work, as different sources might emphasise different aspects of his career. Lists of paintings by various artists often catalogue their works alphabetically or chronologically. These lists include titles such as "Adam and Eva (unfinished)", "After the Rain (Garden with Chickens in St. Agatha)", and "Barge Haulers on the Volga". The existence of such lists demonstrates the breadth of work some artists produce, making it hard to isolate one piece as definitively more well-known than others. Some works are lost, particularly those destroyed in the Second World War. These can only be represented by black and white photographs. This loss complicates any assessment of an artist's overall body of work and recognition. Ultimately, without specific information about Alexander Bogen's output, it is impossible to determine which single piece has brought him the most attention. Prints have existed since ancient Egyptian and Chinese civilisations, where they were made using seals or stamps. As paper became readily available in Europe around the end of the fourteenth century, printmaking began to flourish. Woodcuts were used for book illustrations, religious icons, New Year cards, and playing cards. Prints are often produced in limited, numbered editions. The practice of numbering and signing prints distinguishes original graphics from reproductions, and it confirms the authenticity of a print. The number on a print indicates its place in the edition, such as 35/100, where 100 is the total number of prints and 35 is the print's individual number. The Professional Art Dealers Association of Canada defines an original print as an image conceived and executed solely as a print, usually in a numbered edition, and signed by the artist. Each print in the edition is an original, printed from a plate, stone, screen or block created for that purpose. Alexander Bogen's artistic affiliations are complex. The term "realism" is often applied, but this requires careful consideration. Realism, in art, encompasses v