Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Zeev Ben-Zvi artist

Sculptor Zeev Ben-Zvi was born Beniamin Kujawski into an orthodox Jewish family in Ryki, Congress Kingdom of Poland, then part of the Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1904. He studied at the Academy of Art in Warsaw before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine in 1923, where he learned to sculpt at night after labouring during the day. After teaching at Jerusalem's Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts (now Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design) Ben-Zvi lived in England in the late 1930s, where he continued working as a noted modernist portrait sculptor.

Born: 1904 Ryki, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland)

Died: 1952 Jerusalem, Israel

Other name/s: Beniamin Kujawski


Biography

Sculptor Zeev Ben-Zvi was born Beniamin Kujawski into an orthodox Jewish family in Ryki, Congress Kingdom of Poland (then Russian Empire, now Poland) in 1904. With the outbreak of the First World War, his family escaped to Russia, settling briefly in Yekaterinoslav. In 1921, Ben-Zvi returned to Warsaw, studying at the Academy of Art before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine in 1923. He immediately enrolled at Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz (1866–1932) (and which, like Ben Uri, derived its name from the biblical decorator of the ark of the covenant, Bezalel Ben Uri), remaining until 1924. After working for two years with Schatz, Ben-Zvi taught sculpture at Bezalel from 1926 to 1927. In 1928, he travelled to France to pursue further art studies, where he was exposed to Cubism, particularly the works of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. In 1937, Ben-Zvi again briefly stayed in Paris before moving to London, England, where he remained between 1937-39. After returning to Jerusalem, he became a lecturer at Bezalel, holding various posts at the institution until his death.

Ben-Zvi’s sculptures are regarded as some of the earliest examples of modernism in Mandatory Palestine / Israel. The early naturalistic style of his portrait busts evolved into a more intense abstract expression based on Cubist techniques, particularly in the design of facial features. The combination of their modernist aesthetic and large scale evoked a sense of monumentality and his work influenced a subsequent generation of sculptors. During his time in England, he began to use more to minimise detail, as seen in his portrait sculpture of Lord Hore-Belisha (1893–1957), Liberal MP and co-founder of the National Liberal Party (Ben Uri Collection).

Ben-Zvi's first solo exhibition was held in 1932 at Bezalel, followed by the Tel Aviv Museum in 1933. His sculpture The Sower Pioneer featured at the 1934 Levant Fair in Tel Aviv. In 1935, Ben-Zvi's Portrait of Shemaryahu Levin was displayed at Bezalel, where it garnered praise from High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope, who later bequeathed it to the Tel Aviv Museum after his death. During his British period, Ben-Zvi showed at Ben Uri in the Annual Exhibition of Works by Jewish Artists (1937), at the Royal Academy of Arts (1937, 1938), Institute of Fine Arts in Glasgow (1938), and held a solo exhibition in London’s Matthiesen Galleries (1938) (established by German émigré art dealer Francis Matthiesen) during which the press observed: ‘By defying the tenets of orthodox Jewish religion which forbid the making of “graven images,” Mr. Zeev Ben-Zvi had to struggle to become a sculptor. As the son of orthodox parents he did not see any sculpture until he was 15,’ (Daily Herald, 1938, p. 5). Ben-Zvi further explained: ‘When, at the age of 19, after four years as a painting student I decided to become a sculptor I had to do it at night time [...] after spending eight hours a day as a stonemason, laying watermains in Jerusalem or as a bricklayer,’ (Daily Herald, 1938, p. 5).

Returning to Mandatory Palestine in 1939, he created a memorial for a member of Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim and crafted a series of masks using metalworking techniques. In 1945, Ben-Zvi completed his second major monument, Yad L’Yaldei HaGolah (Memorial to the Children of the Diaspora), at Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek. This tribute to children who perished in the Holocaust was created in collaboration with the kibbutz’s educational institution and is often considered the pinnacle of Israeli monumental sculpture. Ben-Zvi aimed to make the creative process a meaningful educational experience that would help shape both personal and collective memory. He initiated a further project with around 50 immigrants exiled to detention camps in Cyprus, where he established a workshop teaching sculpture and copper metalworking. Through their artistic creations, the detainees explored their experiences of exile and displacement and, guided by Ben-Zvi, created monument models to honour their families, and other works, designed to explore repressed psychological themes within an artistic context. Students Shlomo Schwartz and Naftali Bezem produced a print album depicting life in the camp. His work continued to be shown at Ben Uri, including in the Opening Exhibition (1944) and the Coronation Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture (1953).

Ben-Zvi married Esther Zuckerblat and the couple had a daughter Ruth. Her eturned to teaching at Bezalel in 1949 and, in 1952, was appointed director. Zeev Ben-Zvi died in Jerusalem, Israel in 1952, after a brief illness and was buried in Givat Shaul Cemetery. Posthumously, in 1953, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Sculpture, in its inaugural year, and the Dizengoff Prize. In the UK public domain his works are held in the Ben Uri Collection and New College, University of Oxford. Ben Uri featured his sculpture in Out of Chaos - Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, Somerset House (2015) and in Cosmopolis: The Impact of Refugee Art Dealers in London (2024).

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson, Sarah MacDougall and Richard Cork, Out of Chaos: Ben Uri: 100 Years in London, exh. cat. (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2015), pp. 84-85
  • David Bonan, Israel & Art: 60 Years Through the Eyes of Teddy Kollek (London: Ben Uri Gallery, 2008)
  • Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner, eds., Jewish Artists: the Ben Uri Collection - Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture (London: Ben Uri Art Society in Association with Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd, 1994), p. 24
  • Haim Gazmu, Ben-Zvi: Sculptures (Tel Aviv: Hazvi, 1955)
  • Elias Newman, Art in Palestine (New York: Siebel Company/Verlag, 1939)
  • No author, ‘Sculptor at Night Time’, Daily Herland, 8 December 1938, p. 5
  • Sculpture by Zeev Ben-Zvi, exh. cat. (Matthiesen Gallery: London, 1938)
  • Hannen Swaffer, ‘Best thing in Academy is not a picture’, Daily Herland, 30 April 1938, p. 6
  • The Work of Zeev Ben-Zvi, Jewish Chronicle, 27 July 1934, p. 23

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, Jerusalem (student, later lecturer and director)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Cosmopolis: The Impact of Refugee Art Dealers in London, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2024)
  • Out of Chaos - Ben Uri: 100 Years in London (group show), Somerset House, London (2015)
  • Bonhams Israeli (group show), Bonhams, London (2011)
  • Touring exhibition of Israeli art (including photographs of works by Zeev Ben-Zvi), various London venues, including University of London Israeli Society (1962)
  • Exhibition of Jewish Art (group show), Hove Museum of Art, Hove (1946)
  • Opening Exhibition (group show), Ben Uri Art Gallery, London (1944)
  • Sculpture by Zeev Ben-Zvi (solo exhibition), Matthiesen Gallery, London (1938)
  • 77th Annual Exhibition (group show), Institute of Fine Arts, Glasgow (1938)
  • Summer Exhibition (group show), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1938)
  • Summer Exhibition (group show), Leicester Galleries, London (1937)
  • Summer Exhibition (group show), Leicester Galleries , London (1937)
  • Levant Fair (group show), Tel Aviv (1934)
  • Zeev Ben-Zvi (solo exhibition), Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv (1933)
  • Zeev Ben-Zvi (solo exhibition), Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem (1932)
  Zeev Ben-Zvi
   
Ben Uri collection

Zeev Ben-Zvi in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Zeev Ben-Zvi]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Zeev Ben-Zvi] in the Ben Uri Library