Zeev Ben-Zvi

Zeev Ben-Zvi was an Israeli sculptor and teacher who in 1953 received the first Israel Prize for sculpture.

1904 to 1952Cubist-influenced portrait sculptureThe Mishmar HaEmek children's memorialFirst Israel Prize for sculptureTeaching sculpture at Bezalel

Born: 30 March 1904, Siedlce Governorate
Died: 16 October 1952, Jerusalem
Occupation: sculptor, pedagogue
Education: Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw

Zeev Ben-Zvi was born in 1904 in Siedlce Governorate

Zeev Ben-Zvi was born Beniamin Kujawski in 1904 in Ryki, then part of the Russian Empire. During World War I his family fled to Russia and lived in Yekaterinoslav. In 1921 he returned to Warsaw and took art classes there.

In 1923 he moved to the Land of Israel and studied at Bezalel until 1924, where Boris Schatz was among his teachers. He later taught sculpture there. In 1928 he went to France to study and encountered cubism, which shaped his portrait heads.

He held his first exhibition at Bezalel in 1932 and showed at the Tel Aviv Museum a year later. He spent 1937 to 1938 in Paris and London and exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1945 he created the memorial for the children killed in the Holocaust at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, working with the kibbutz students.

In the Cyprus detention camps he ran a sculpture and copper workshop for about 50 detained immigrants. From 1949 he taught at the New Bezalel, and in 1952 he was its director. He died in Jerusalem in 1952 and received the Israel Prize after his death in 1953.