Jacob Pins

Jacob Pins was a German-born Israeli woodcut artist and painter, and a collector of Japanese prints and paintings.

1917 to 2005Expressionist woodcut printsCollecting Japanese prints and paintingsTeaching printmaking at Bezalel

Born: 17 January 1917, Höxter
Died: 4 December 2005, Jerusalem
Occupation: artist, art collector, university teacher, painter
Education: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design

Jacob Pins was born in 1917 in Höxter

Jacob Pins was born in Höxter, Germany, in 1917. His father, Leo Pins, was a veterinarian, and his mother was Ida Lipper. His family opposed his wish to become an artist, and his parents later died in the Riga Ghetto in 1944.

He moved to the Land of Israel alone in 1936 and joined a pioneer group of German immigrants. In 1941 he began studying woodcut and linocut with Jacob Steinhardt in Jerusalem. He later continued his studies at Bezalel.

His work drew on German expressionism and Japanese woodblock printing. In 1954 his prints were shown at the Smithsonian, and museums such as MoMA and the British Museum acquired them. He taught drawing and printmaking at Bezalel from 1956 to 1977 and helped found the Jerusalem Artists' House.

Pins began collecting Japanese prints in 1945 and wrote a book on Japanese pillar prints. He died in Jerusalem in 2005. His Asian art collection went to the Israel Museum, and a museum in his name opened in Höxter in 2008.