Moshe Maimon (also Moses Lvovich Maimon; russian: Моисей Львович Маймон; 1860 – 1924) was a

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 ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

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 ...

who was born in the

Augustów Governorate Augustów Governorate ( pl, Gubernia augustowska, lt, Augustavo gubernija, russian: Августовская губерния) was an administrative unit (governorate) of Congress Poland. It was created in 1837 from the Augustów Voivodship, and ...

, then part of 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. ...

(present-day

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

). He was among the first known

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

s within the Jewish community of Russia. He was also the grandson of author

Alexander Ziskind Maimon Alexander Ziskind Maimon (July 18, 1809 - July 12, 1887) was a Lithuanian Jewish author and scholar of the Talmud and Mishnah. Maimon was born in Seirijai, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire to a family who claimed agnatic descent from Maim ...

Biography

Maimon was born in

Vilkaviškis Vilkaviškis () is a city in southwestern Lithuania, the administrative center of the Vilkaviškis District Municipality. It is located northwest from Marijampolė, at the confluence of of and rivers. The city got its name from the Vilka ...

, in the

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian 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 w ...

(present-day

). He was apprenticed as a

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly t ...

in his youth and studied painting in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

and

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. In 1880 he was admitted to the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by the founder of the Imperial Moscow University Ivan Shuvalov under the name ''Academy of the Thre ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. His admission was based on his painting of the

Marranos Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy. The term specifically refers to the charg ...

, for which he was awarded with a gold medal. Maimon graduated from the academy in 1883. In later years he was a member of the "Society for the Encouragement of Jewish Arts", which was established in St. Peterburg in 1916. Maimon-Marrans

Apart from Maimon's breakthrough for Jewish artists in his time, his work concerned

biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

tales and the history of the Jewish people. Among his familiar works are: "The Marranos", "The Hashmonaim", "The Inquisition" (1893), "Back in the Homeland", "After the Pogrom" (at the Israel Museum Collection, Jerusalem), "The Battle in the Mountains of Turenchin" (1906) and series of paintings devoted to biblical figures. Maimon researched the background of his paintings. In his preparation for "The Marranos" he traveled to Spain to collect details of information to use. Maimon's painting "The Marranos" was long believed lost by several scholars, including Gabriella Safran, Olga Litvak, and Hillel Kazovsky. But an article by Musya Glants at Harvard tells the exciting and amusing story of the painting's adventures and discovery and eventual "safe harbor". It is now installed at the Hebrew Home for the Aged in New York City.Glants Musya, "Lost and Found in America", Jewish Quarterly, Spring, 1998. His work was internationally known at his lifetime. Nine of Maimon's works were shown at the Russian exhibition at the St. Louis World's fair in 1904. Some of his work was shown at the JSEA's exhibition in 1916 - 1917. He died in 1924 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

External links

"Thorny way of Moses Maimon

Lechaim ''Lechaim'' (Лехаим) is the flagship magazine of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC). History and profile ''Lechaim'' was founded in 1991. It is printed monthly in Russian, with sections on news, memoirs, Torah ...

June 2005 *''Jewish Encyclopedia:'
"Maimon, Moisei Leibovich"
by Herman Rosenthal & Jacob Goodale Lipman (1906).
''Moses Maimon''
Article in "Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maimon, Moshe 1860 births 1924 deaths People from Vilkaviškis People from Augustów Governorate Lithuanian Jews 19th-century painters from the Russian Empire Russian male painters 20th-century Russian painters Jewish painters 19th-century male artists from the Russian Empire 20th-century Russian male artists