Meer Moiseevich Akselrod, also Meyer Axelrod (1902–1970) (Russified form of the first name Mark) was a Belarusian

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

best known for his

watercolor painting Watercolor (American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the U ...

s of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

life in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Life

Akselrod was born in

Maladzyechna Maladzyechna ( be, Маладзе́чна, Maladziečna, ; russian: Молоде́чно, Molodechno; pl, Mołodeczno) is a city in the Minsk Region of Belarus, an administrative centre of the Maladzyechna District (and formerly of the Maladzyech ...

. As a child, he survived a

pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...

and moved to Russia during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In the 1920s, he studied and then taught at the VKhUTEMAS School of Art. His work was barely known outside the former Soviet Union until his daughter, Elena Akselrod, published her father's biography and a representative collection of his works in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in 1993.

References

* Georgy Fedorov. ''Meer Akselrod'', Moscow, Sovetskij khudozhnik, 1982, 134p.

External links

A web gallery of Akselrod's paintings
1902 births 1970 deaths People from Maladzyechna People from Vileysky Uyezd Belarusian Jews Belarusian male artists Jewish painters Vkhutemas alumni Academic staff of Vkhutemas 20th-century Belarusian painters 20th-century male artists Belarusian male painters 20th-century Belarusian male artists Male painters Soviet painters {{Belarus-painter-stub