Kaplan Anatoly Lvovich

Real name Tankhum Leivikovich. Born in Rogachev (Mogilev province) on December 28, 1902 (January 10, 1903) in the family of a butcher. He studied at the Higher Art and Technical Institute (Vkhutein) in Petrograd-Leningrad (1921–1927) with G.S. Vereisky and A.A. Rylov. He lived in Leningrad, often visiting his native places in the former Pale of Settlement, where he studied the remaining traces of traditional Jewish life and culture. In 1937–1940 he worked in the experimental lithographic workshop of the Leningrad Union of Artists, headed by Vereisky. In his compositions in the spirit of “quiet art” (or a kind of lyrical expressionism) – mainly black-and-white and color lithographs – he resumed the characteristic motifs of the pre-revolutionary “Jewish revival”, which sought to introduce the ancient symbolism of Judaism and the themes of the small-town “Yiddish culture” into the mainstream of modern art. Old family photographs, ethnographic sketches, reminiscences of the sacred decor of tombstones make up a romantic-picturesque fusion in Kaplan’s images. Among his works are albums on themes by Sholem Aleichem (Kasrilovka, 1941; The Enchanted Tailor, 1957; Tevye the Milkman, 1961; Stempenyu, 1968) and the cycle Jewish Folk Songs (1963). He also performed a series of Leningrad during the days of the siege (1944–1949) in his characteristic unsteady, as if “flowing” manner. In later decades, he increasingly acted as an easel painter, enhancing the linear principle in graphics (Rogachev’s series of etchings, 1970s). Since his work as the chief artist of the Leningrad Glass Factory (1950–1951), he had a growing interest in three-dimensional form, and from the late 1960s he was actively involved in ceramics (plaques, decorative dishes and plates, sculpture of small forms using the technique of fireclay, colored glaze and engobe). Kaplan died in Leningrad on July 3, 1980.