Ze'ev Raban 1890-1970

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Raban Remembered, Jerusalem's Forgotten Master, Yeshiva University Museum, December 1982 - June 1983, exhibition catalogue, nos. 31, 32, 37
Ze'ev Raban A Hebrew Symbolist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2001, exhibition catalogue, nos. 153-155, pp. 116-117

Ze'ev Raban, The Haggada, ed. Batsheva Goldman Ida, Sinai Publishing Ltd. and Yad Itzhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, 2005
Bezalel 100, David Tartakover and Gideon Efrat, editors, vol. I, 2006, p.215

An early figure in the evolution of art in Israel, Ze'ev Raban was born Wolf Rawicki in Lodz in 1890. He began his artistic instruction at the age of fifteen, studying sculpture and decorative arts in various European cities, including Lodz, Munich, Paris, and Brussels.

In 1912, Raban immigrated to Palestine and quickly involved himself in the development of the emerging state. He was invited by Boris Schatz to join the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts where he refined and promoted the utopian ideals of the Bezalel style.  Enthusiastic and determined, Raban believed in the awakening of  Hebrew art in Palestine, personally endeavouring to bring this dream to fruition.

Raban easily navigated a wealth of artistic sources and mediums, borrowing and combining ideas from East and West, fine arts and crafts from past and present.  His works blended European neoclassicism, Symbolist art and Art Nouveau with oriental forms and techniques to form a distinctive visual lexicon. Versatile and productive, he lent this unique style to most artistic mediums, including the fine arts, illustration, sculpture, repousee, jewellery design, and ceramics.

Also a prodigious draftsman with a tremendous output, Raban created posters encouraging travel and immigration to Palestine, illustrated children's books, logos, ex libris plates, Jewish playing cards, postcards, and calendars. He also celebrated Biblical themes, communicating the Zionist ideology and his own relationship with Jewish traditions.  Raban produced a number of bible illustrations, including the Song of Songs, the Book of Esther, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Job and the present lot, the Passover Haggadah.

The illustrations for the Haggadah demonstrate the artist's dexterity in bridging a wide scope of influences and ideas. The result is a coherent, exquisite work, summoning a rich past and the vivid present of a people committed to their faith and to renewed national identity. One finds Raban's idealization of reality, metaphor, the use of dramatic poses, elongation, processional structure, and realism within Persian ornamentation (Gideon Ofrat, Raban Remembered, p. 32). Yemenite and Hassidic Jews, six winged angels, an array of animals, and clouds are among the images that adorn this Haggadah. Evident on the frontispiece, is the influence of ancient Egyptian art. Raban most likely drew inspiration from this source on a trip to Egypt in 1924.  He was motivated by other ideas here as well; his incorporation of text into design was derived from traditional Jewish sources, such as manuscripts and marriage contracts, while a paramount influence was the fusion of artistic and poetic language found in the Persian miniature. "There (in the Persian miniature) Raban found the idea of the illustrated sacred poem and romance; the heroic story, the delight in the wondrous...the controlled and sublimated dramatization; the calligraphic, rhythmic, and graceful line; and the enclosed space of the theatrical events." (Raban Remembered, Yeshiva University Museum, New York, p. 31)

The text of the Haggadah was ordered from a Torah scribe. Raban cut the parchment and pasted it on paper, adding opening letter and word panels, titles, headings and illustrations.  He prepared approximately twenty pages; another thirty pages of text were written, but the illustrations were not completed. The illustrations here were published as a Haggadah in 2005, using these texts. 

The pages in the present lot include:  the frontispiece; Laws of Passover; Search for the Leavened Bread;  Eruv Tavshilin, the Signs of Passover; The Blessing over Wine, Washing Hands, Eating a Vegetable; Dividing the Matzah, Telling the Story of Passover, We Were Slaves;  The Simple Son and The Son Who Does Not Know How to Ask a Question; Blessed is He Who Keeps His Promise to Israel,  And He Went Down to Egypt;  And the Egyptians Dealt Cruelly with Us and Afflicted Us, And (He) Looked upon our Affliction; With a Mighty Hand, The Ten Plagues, and Had Gadya.