Alexander Bogen

Art Brokerage: Alexander Bogen Israeli Artist: b. 1916-2010. Alexander Bogen (born January 24, 1916 – October 20, 2010) was an acclaimed Israeli artist, painter, sculptor, stage designer, book illustrator and a commander partisan during World War II. During his time in Israel, Bogen continued his cultural and educational activities in the arts. In 1957 he initiated the art program in Ironi Yud-Dalet highschool in Tel Aviv and lead it for 22 years. Bogen completed his academic studies of art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and was an art lecturer in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. All that without giving up, even for a moment, on his main practice - painting, drawing and sculpturing, until his death at the age of 95. Bogen continued to draw during the war, documenting what he saw: "We saw abandoned children. We saw people being led to the slaughter. I did not lay down my pencil for a moment. An artist condemned to death portraying people condemned to extermination...I sketched the forest, my brothers-in-arms, the battle itself. There was no table. There were no paints. There was no paper. I found packing paper. I burnt dry branches and prepared charcoal for my sketches. I asked myself why I was drawing, when I was fighting day and night… This is something similar to biological continuation. Every man, every people, is interested in continuing his people, his family, in bringing children into the world for the future – in leaving this one thing. Another motivation was to get information to the so-called free world……and to be creative in the situation of the Holocaust, this is also a protest... The artist reacts through his medium. This is his protest!... This is his weapon…This is what shows that the Germans could not break his spirit."