Zeev Kun

Zeev Kun was born in 1930 in Nyíregyháza

Zeev Kun was born on 16 April 1930 in Nyíregyháza, in northeastern Hungary. As a teenager he worked in his parents' art supply store. His parents were Blanka and Sandor.

In 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz and then to Jaworno. From January to April 1945 he was held in Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald and Flossenbürg, where American troops freed the prisoners on 23 April 1945. He returned to Hungary in August 1945 and went back to school.

In 1947 he began studying at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest. In 1949 he left Hungary secretly with a Hashomer Hatzair group and sailed from Bari to Israel, settling first at kibbutz Givat Haim. In 1951 he went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he was close to Anton Lehmden and Ernst Fuchs.

Back in Israel he joined the Israeli Painters and Sculptors Association. He showed his work in Israel and in cities such as Paris, London, Sydney, New York and Berlin. He won the Max Nordau Prize for Arts in 1973.

For many years he worked in Safed, where he had his own gallery, and later he moved back to Tel Aviv. He was married to the painter Hedy Kun, and their son is the painter Shay Kun. He died on 20 June 2024.