Ephraim Moses Lilien ' A Yemenite Jew' Circa 1923

Ephraim Moses Lilien ' A Yemenite Jew' Circa 1923

Etched painting portrays a humble elderly (Yemenite) gentleman wearing traditional garb clasping his hands together.

Inscription on the bottom reads: "Meyer in Loyal Friendship, E. M. Lilien" .  1923

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925)- was an art nouveau illustrator and printmaker particularly noted for his art on Jewish themes. He was born in 1874, in Drohobycz, Galicia, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1889-1893, Lilien learned painting and graphic techniques at the Academy of Arts in Kraków. He studied under Polish painter Jan Matejko from 1890 to 1892.

Lilien was one of the two artists to accompany Boris Schatz to what is now Israel in 1906 for the purpose of establishing Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and taught the school's first class in 1906. Although his stay in the country was short-lived, he left his indelible stamp on the creation of an Eretz Israel style, placing biblical subjects in the Zionist context and oriental settings, conceived in an idealized Western design. In the first two decades of the century, Lilien's work served as a model for the Bezalel group.

Lilien is known for his famous photographic portrait of Theodor Herzl. He often used Herzl as a model, considering his features a perfect representation of the "New Jew."[5] In 1896, he received an award for photography from the avantgarde magazine Jugend. Lilien illustrated several books. In 1923, an exhibition of his work opened in New York.

Lilien's illustrated books include Juda (1900), Biblically themed poetry by Lilien's Christian friend, Börries Freiherr von Münchhausen, and Lieder des Ghetto (Songs of the Ghetto) (1903), Yiddish poems by Morris Rosenfeld translated into German.

Lilien died in Badenweiler, Germany in 1925. A street in the Nayot neighborhood of Jerusalem is named for him.

Signed Lower Left

12.5in x 10.5in. Portrait (32cm x 27cm)

16.5in x 14in.  Frame (42.5cm x 36cm)