{{short description|Belarusian artist (1854-1937)}} thumb|Yudel Pen, self-portrait, 1922 '''Yudel Pen''', also known as '''Yehuda Pen''' or '''Yury Pen''',{{efn|Yudel is a Yiddish name, {{langx|yi|יודל פּען}}, {{langx|be|Юдаль Моўшавіч Пэн}}. Yehuda is a Hebrew name, though it's very unlikely that Pen himself used it. Yury is a Russified name, {{langx|ru|Юрий Моисеевич}}, {{langx|be|Юрый Майсеевіч}}.<ref name="nlb"/>}} (5 June [24 May Old Style] 1854 - 28 February 1937)<ref name="nlb">{{cite web |title=Пэн Юдаль (Іегуда) Моўшавіч (Юрый Майсеевіч) |url=https://bis.nlb.by/ru/documents/128163 |website=bis.nlb.by |publisher=Беларусь у асобах i падзеях |access-date=23 June 2024}}</ref> was a Jewish artist and art teacher active in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. He is best known for founding an influential art school in Vitebsk and teaching notable avant-garde artists like Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, and Ossip Zadkine. Pen was one of the first painters to consistently depict Jewish life in the Pale of Settlement; he is sometimes called "the Sholem Aleichem of painting".<ref name="Diment">{{cite journal |last1=Diment |first1=Galya |title=Yehuda Pen, The Sholem Aleichem of Painting |journal=Ars Judaica: The Bar Ilan Journal of Jewish Art |date=1 January 2021 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=61–86 |doi=10.3828/aj.2021.17.4 |url=https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/full/10.3828/aj.2021.17.4 |access-date=23 June 2024 |language=en |issn=2516-4252|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Born in a poor Jewish family in a shtetl, he showed an early talent for drawing and painting. He got an academic training in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and several years after graduation he opened an art school in Vitebsk, where he taught many poor, mainly Jewish children, often for free. Pen was murdered in 1937; though officially called a robbery, his students believed that he was killed by NKVD during the Stalin's purges. A lot of his paintings were lost during the World War II. The surviving works are split between the National Art Museum in Minsk and the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local History.
== Early life and education == thumb|"The house where I was born", 1886-1890 Yudel Pen was born in 1854 in Novo-Aleksandrovsk (now Zarasai, Lithuania), to a poor Jewish family. His father, Movsha (or Moisei), died when Pen was four, leaving his Orthodox mother with ten children.<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo">{{cite web |first=Hillel |last=Kazovsky |title=YIVO {{!}} Pen, Yehudah |url=https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pen_Yehudah |website=yivoencyclopedia.org |access-date=23 June 2024}}</ref> He had a cheder education.<ref name="nlb"/><ref name="yivo"/> Despite religious prohibitions against creating images, Pen showed an early talent for drawing and painting, that wasn't encouraged by his mother, who condemned the portraits he painted as "idolatry".<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/>
As a young man, Pen worked for five years as a house painter in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia),<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> where he met Borukh Gershovich, a Jewish student from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, who encouraged Pen to pursue formal art education. In 1879, at age 24, Pen moved to St. Petersburg to study at the Imperial Academy of Arts. Pen failed to pass the entry exams from the first attempt, and, as a Jew, he wasn't allowed to live in the capital. He had to bribe officials to stay illegally, and spent a year studying works in the Hermitage Museum before being admitted to the academy. Pen graduated with a silver medal, having been trained in the academic traditions of Realist art.<ref name="Diment"/> Among his teachers in the academy were Pavel Chistyakov and Nikolay Laveretsky.<ref name="nlb"/> Rembrandt was his favourite artist.<ref name="Diment"/>{{sfn|Шатских|2001|p=16}}
== Career == thumb|''Marc Chagall'', c. 1915 After graduation, Pen worked as a court painter for Baron Nikolai Korf in Kreitsburg.<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> He stayed there for five years, and was "mostly unhappy because he had to paint from photographs".<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="nlb"/> He visited Ilya Repin, who lived nearby in Zdrawneva. In 1891, he was invited to Vitebsk by the governor {{ill|Vladimir Levashov|ru|Левашов, Владимир Александрович}}, who offered him "a room at his governor’s mansion". Pen would spend the rest of his life in Vitebsk.<ref name="Diment"/>
In 1897, Pen opened an art school in Vitebsk,<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> mainly for Jewish children, many of whom didn't know Russian and spoke only Yiddish. The school was closed on Shabbat,<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> and was under a patronage of Adolf Livenson, "the director of a large beer brewery". Pen followed an academic approach, and taught many poor children for free.<ref name="Diment"/>{{sfn|Шатских|2001|p=18}} In 1906, Marc Chagall, who was then 19 years old, started to study at the school. Pen's other famous students are El Lissitzky and Ossip Zadkine.<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> Among his students were also Zair Azgur, Efim Minin,<ref name="nlb"/> Solomon Yudovin,<ref name="Diment"/> {{ill|Elena Kabisher|ru|Кабищер-Якерсон, Елена Аркадьевна}}, {{ill|David Yakerson|ru|Якерсон, Давид Аронович}}, {{ill|Lev Zevin|ru|Зевин, Лев Яковлевич}}, Ilya Mazel, {{ill|Lev Leitman|be|Леў Мееравіч Лейтман}}, Abel Pann, Polia Chentoff.{{sfn|Шатских|2001|pp=16-19}} According to Alexandra Shatskih, Pen always called himself by a Russified name "Yury Moiseevich".{{sfn|Шатских|2001|pp=12-15}} Pen often used German-Jewish magazine ''Ost und West'' "as a manual".<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2143/SR.37.0.583408 |title=A ''Parokhet'' as a Picture |date=2004 |last1=Rajner |first1=Mirjam |journal=Studia Rosenthaliana |volume=37 |pages=193–222 }}</ref> It was the first Jewish art school in the Pale of Settlement.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sharlin |first1=Shifra |title=Marc Chagall and the People’s Art School in Vitebsk Reunion |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/chagall-lissitzky-peoples-art-school-vitebsk-jewish-museum |publisher=Tablet |access-date=24 June 2024}}</ref>
Historian Galya Diment notes the importance of Pen's art school for his students:<ref name="Diment"/> {{blockquote|Pen was no genius. His paintings are often static and rather lifeless. His palette seems to lack subtle shades of color. Where Chagall’s art creates lyrical poetry, Pen’s seemingly just recreates simple and prosaic everyday existence. ... Yet to his young and impressionable pupils who were surrounded by all these paintings as they were taking lessons from him, the lack of artistic perfection probably did not register. It was the sheer existence of these works in which you could almost hear the characters speak – or scream – in Yiddish, just like their families did, that mattered.
...Pen's gift to them was not a particular style of painting but a much-needed assurance that, as Jews, they could still be serious, respected artists who did not have to shy away from Jewish subjects. In short, he gave them a role model...}}
Pen was a Realist painter, and even though his students became known for avant-garde paintings, he did not approve "Cubism and Futurism". Pen primarily created realist paintings depicting everyday Jewish life in the Pale of Settlement. His subjects included craftsmen, scholars, and scenes of religious and family life. Notable works include "A Letter to America" (1920s), "Children Refugees" (1915), "Get" (Divorce, 1907), "Der Fraynd" (A Friend), and "Haynt" (Today). While not stylistically innovative, Pen was groundbreaking in his consistent focus on contemporary Jewish subjects. Pen is compared to and sometimes called "the Sholem Aleichem of painting".<ref name="Diment"/>
<gallery mode=packed heights=180px> 1903. Письмо из америки.jpg|''Letter from America'', 1903 Yudel_Pen,_Old_Tailor,_early_1910s.jpg|''Old Tailor'', c. 1910 1910-е. За газетой.jpg|''Reading a Newspaper'', 1910s Yehuda_Pen_Watchmaker.jpg|''Clockmaker'', 1914 Iehuda Pen. House with a goat 1920s.jpg|''House with a Goat'', 1920s </gallery>
thumb|Portrait of an unknown woman, 1900s
Pen often draw inhabitants of Vitebsk, and was especially fond of drawing young women. According to Chagall, "[t]here was not a single beautiful young woman whom Pen, once she had reached the age of 20, did not invite to pose for him in any way she wished. If it was possible to include her breasts – so much the better."<ref name="Diment"/>
After World War I, Pen visited his students Zadkine and Chagall in Paris, but he did not want to move there from Vitebsk.<ref name="Diment"/>
== Later life and Soviet era == After the October Revolution of 1917, Pen briefly taught at the Vitebsk People's Art College by invitation from Chagall. He resigned in 1920 due to ideological conflicts he and Chagall had with Kazimir Malevich.<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="nlb"/>
In the 1920s and 1930s, Pen participated in several exhibitions in Minsk and Moscow. While he continued to focus on Jewish subjects, some of his works acquired a Soviet veneer, such as "A Komsomol Shoemaker Reading a Newspaper" (1925).<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/> In 1930, he was invited to exhibit in Berlin, but was not allowed to go by the Soviet authorities, even after his students and friends tried to help him.<ref name="Diment"/>
Pen had a two-room apartment in Vitebsk. One room served as his workshop and study, while the other was his living room. Pen never married; he lived with his sister, who died in 1931. Out of all his students, Chagall was especially fond of his old teacher, and sent him letters from Paris even in the 1930s, when it was not encouraged by the Soviets and was risky for the Soviet citizens. Chagall tried to convince Pen to emigrate and settle in Paris, or at least to send his works there "for safekeeping". In 1928, Solomon Yudovin, also his former student, who became the director of the Leningrad Jewish Historical and Ethnographical Museum, tried to convince Pen to give his paintings to the permanent collection of the museum.<ref name="Diment"/> Pen also corresponded with other students; Ossip Zadkine sent him a letter when he served in France during the World War I. He also had many years of correspondence with Elena Kabisher-Yakerson.{{sfn|Шатских|2001|pp=12-19}}
<gallery mode=packed heights=180px> Преподаватели Народного художественного училища.jpg|Professors at the People's Art School in Vitebsk, July 26, 1919. From left to right: Lazar Lissitzky, Vera Ermolaeva, Marc Chagall, {{ill|David Yakerson|ru|Якерсон, Давид Аронович}}, Yury Pen, Nina Kogan, and {{ill|Alexander Romm|ru|Ромм, Александр Георгиевич}} File:Yudel Pen in his workshop, 1920s.jpg|Pen in his workshop, 1920s File:Ю. Пэн з вучнямі у сваёй кватэры - майстэрні.jpg|Pen with his students, 1920s File:Yudel_Pen_Zarya_Zapada.jpg|"A Komsomol Shoemaker Reading a Newspaper", 1925 </gallery>
== Death and legacy ==
{{Quote box | quote = Fate has thrown me far from my native ruins. But no matter how different our art is, I will never forget his trembling figure. He lives in my memory as a father. And often when I think about the deserted streets of my town, he appears now here, now there … And I cannot help begging you: do remember his name. | source = —Marc Chagall, 1927<ref name="Diment"/> | width = 30% | align = right }}
Pen was murdered with an axe in his own home during the night of February 28/March 1, 1937. While officially attributed to robbery,<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="nlb"/> his students believed that he was killed by NKVD during the Stalin's purges. His niece, some other relative, and a former student were arrested and convicted for the murder.{{sfn|Шатских|2001|pp=12-15}} None of the painting were stolen from his house, and Pen had no money.<ref name="Diment"/>
An alternative version suggests that Pen was killed by the Vitebsk NKVD chief who had convicted his relatives. According to this account, the motive stemmed from Pen's refusal "to sell him a painting of a nude" that he particularly desired. Some versions of this theory claim "the nude in question" was actually a depiction of the chief's wife.<ref name="Diment"/>
thumb|Pen's funeral in Vitebsk was attended by thousands of people.
Chagall could not attend the funeral; he wrote a short poem about Pen's murder:<ref name="Diment"/> <poem> :My teacher is no more, :his beard is no more, :his easel is no more. An evil monster killed him, having slyly appeared at his place. :And a black horse forever :took this old rebbe somewhere to the other world. </poem>
Pen became mostly forgotten, and not widely known outside Belarus. Many of Pen's estimated 800 paintings were lost during World War II. The surviving works are split between the National Art Museum in Minsk and the Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local History.<ref name="Diment"/><ref name="yivo"/>
== Gallery == <gallery mode="packed"> File:Yudel Pen, An old man with a basket, 1892.jpg|An old man with a basket, 1892 Yehuda Pen. Portrait of Lidzija Kon.jpg|Portrait of Lidzija Kon, 1903 Yury Pen-Divorce.jpg|''Divorce'', 1907 Yudel Pen, Farmstead.jpg|''Farmstead'', c. 1916 Проситель.jpg|''Letter to America'', 1920s Yehuda Pen Self-Portrait with Muse and with Death.JPG|''Self-portrait with Muse and Death'', 1925 Yudel Pen Portrait of a man, 1925.jpg|Portrait of a man, 1925 Yehuda Pen Breakfast, self-portrait, 1932.jpg|''Breakfast'', self-portrait, 1932 Yudel Pen, Torah Study.jpg|''Torah Study'' </gallery>
== Notes == {{notelist}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== Sources == {{commons}} * {{cite book |last1=Шатских |first1=Александра |title=Витебск. Жизнь искусства. 1917–1922 |date=2001 |publisher=Litres |isbn=978-5-04-099198-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=scMUEAAAQBAJ |access-date=23 June 2024 |language=ru}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pen, Yudel}} Category:Painters from the Russian Empire Category:Jewish painters Category:Soviet painters Category:Lithuanian Jews Category:Belarusian Jews Category:1854 births Category:1937 deaths Category:People from Zarasai