Ben-Zion Paintings

Genre: Judaica Subject: Religious Medium: Oil Surface: Board Country: United States Dimensions: 17.5" x 21.75" Dimensions w/Frame: 24" x 28" Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and Judaic poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant...

Floral Still Life Ben-Zion (Ukraine, 1897-1987) Circa 1930's Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. 17 3/4 x 12 5/8 One of the founding artists of Abstract Expressionism, hailing from Ukraine, Ben-Zion Weinman arrived in the United States in 1920 after the end of World War l. In America, he became Ben-Zion because to drag around two names was “rather too difficult.” Ben-Zion was an accomplished, self-taught artist who worked in oils and watercolors. Additionally, Ben-Zion left behind a large body of ironwork. In 1935 he became a founding member of The Ten-a group of artists advancing the concepts of abstraction and expressionism who exhibited together until 1940-along with Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, and others. Critics immediately began taking notice with an article from the New York Sun...