Ze'ev Raban - Life

Life

Raban was born Wolf Rawicki in Łódź, Congress Poland, and began his studies there. He continued his studies in sculpture and architectural ornamentation at a number of European art academies. These included the School of Applied Art in Munich at the height of the Jugendstil movement, the neo-classical studio of Marius-Jean-Antonin Mercié at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, then a center of Art Nouveau, under symbolist and idealist artists Victor Rosseau and Constant Montald.

Under the influence of Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel Academy, Raban moved to the land of Israel in 1912 during the wave of immigration known as the Second Aliyah. He joined the faculty of the Bezalel school, and soon took on a central role there as a teacher of repoussé, painting, and sculpture. He also directed the academy's Graphics Press and the Industrial Art Studio. By 1914, most of the works produced in the school's workshops were of his design. He continued teaching until 1929.

In 1921, he participated in the historic art exhibition at the Tower of David, the first exhibit of Hebrew artists in Palestine, which became the first of a yearly series of such exhibits.