Biography
1912-1998
About The Artist
Rachel
Kogan was born in 1912 in Evpatoriya (Ukraine) to Jewish parents.
She spent her childhood in Odessa, and studied at the Trade-Union
Art School.
In 1930 she entered the Odessa Art Institute and studied there for
one year
In 1931 the Kogan family moved to Leningrad and Rachel was
transferred to the All –Russian Academy of Arts (the former St.
Petersburg Imperial Arts Academy) to study painting.
Her professors included Kordovsky, Shuchaev and Radlov. She received
professional advice and support from Osmarkin and Petrov-Vodkin.
In 1937 Rachel graduated from the Academy.
In 1938 she was accepted to the Leningrad Department of the Artist's
Union of the USSR and took part in all- Russian and Leningrad
exhibitions.
1941-1944: During the war and the siege on Leningrad, Kogan was
evacuated with her children
to Siberia. She worked as an artist and decorated sets of children's
plays as well as painted and created many compositions.
In 1944 Kogan returned back to Leningrad and signed many contracts
with the Artist Union as well as the Art Fund of the USSR.
Her works survived the siege and the Nazi bombings, as they were
stored in the basements of the Academy.
1949-1972: Kogan taught painting and was a Professor of Drawing at
the Leningrad Institute of Monumental and Decorative Art which was
named after Muchina.
For much of her life she devoted herself to painting. Her works are
in many USSR company collections and institutions all over Russia,
such as the Sergei Kirov steel factory.
In 1973 Kogan immigrated to Israel.
Her works have been exhibited at:
1. The National, Republic and Leningrad exhibitions of the USSR
Union of Artists (1938, 73, 75, 76 &78).
2. The Tel-Aviv Museum of Art (Russian Avant-Garde Revaluation
11.1988)
3. The Jerusalem Museum of ART (Propaganda and Vision- Soviet and
Israeli Art 1930-1955 in 1997)
4. The Stadtische Kunsthalle Dusseldorf which introduced the
international exhibition of European Art in the 30's (The "European
conflict in the memory of the early Avant-Garde"10-12 1987).
5. The Bochum Museum (Avant-Garde Art in 1988)
6. Her works are part of many private collections all over the
globe, including the Supreme Court of Israel (portraits of the
formers presidents of the Supreme Court).
7. Israeli Museums (The Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, the Jerusalem Museum
of Art)
About The Artist
Biography
Rachel Kogan, a daughter of a
Russian Revolution, was born in 1912 .
She lived in a very sensational
period politically and artistically. This period of time represented
a transformation from Avant- Garde to Socialist Realism.
The 1920's were known as a period
of hunger, the 30's a period of fear and Stalinist Terror, the 40's
a period of war and the 50's a period of somber.
Rachel Kogan had the privilege to
sense and record all of these important changes of Russian history
and portray in her work.
Fortunately, her works survived the siege and the Nazi bombings on
Leningrad, as they were stored in the basements of the Academy.
Rachel Kogan was not only a
daughter of the Revolution, but also a victim of that Revolution.
At the age of six she witnessed
the pogroms of the Revolution in her native Ukraine. The emotional
battering that Kogan was exposed to was so severe that through
adolescence and early adult life she was unable to leave her room.
Although she overcame her fears, these memories remained embedded in
her mind.
Kogan graduated from the
Leningrad Academy of Art before World War II, when the academy was
still considered one of the finest in Europe.
Rachel Kogan, a Russian Jewish
artist, is a kind of legend in the Russian art world.
She began her work at the end of
the Russian Avant-Gardes epoch and continued on to Socialist
Realism. Rachel's focus switched to Modern Realism when she moved to
Israel.
She was a phenomenon as a Jewish
female artist; one of the only in this period. In Russia, Stalin's
terror against Russian Jews was on the rise. Jewish women that
recorded socialist achievements in factories were extremely unusual.
Kogan didn’t even need the government's encouragement to go to the
Sergei Kirov steel factories. She loved the atmosphere and was glad
to set up her easel beside the workmen.
She was a student of masters such
as Kardovsky and Shukhayev. Once Rachel had been convinced of the
universal necessity for serious academics, she began receiving
advice and support from Osmerkin and Petrov-Vodkin.
Guided in her artistic and
pedagogical
activities by Realistic tradition, Kogan's portraits, landscapes and
numerous drawings bear the marks of professionalism and high graphic
culture. The best of them present a solid argument in favor of the
vast potential of the Realistic Method.
Her landscapes and views of
Leningrad, Siberia and Pereslavl, are full of lyricism and clear
emotions. Every portrait has a sharp characteristic and her
still-life engage with the beauty of their colors and shapes.
It is evident that the rules and
ideas of Soviet art contributed to establishing the artist's views,
yet her art cannot be conveniently and rigidly framed within
official realism.
Rachel Kogan possessed a stable
and whole personality that rejects any hint of dualism in opinions,
actions, and art. This wholeness seems to have been built in her
youth.
The start of her creative life
coincided with the end of the Russian Avant-Garde epoch. Her
drawings bear witness to the fact that she was able to grapple with
a wide spectrum of Russian international art - from Cubism to
Suprematism. This ability did not wane over the years. It actually
became a part of her creative method.
Kogan's art reflects the naked
truth of life. We may agree or disagree with the artist's opinions,
but her firm position deserves our respect.
Kogan's work is amazingly
different from most Israeli artists, but seems to oppose only the
modern art of Israel. Essentially, her works are a necessary
component of the universal structure of the fine arts culture. They
develop in a multitude of ways - not archaic but modern, yet based
on solid classical traditions and professional studies.
Based on article of:
Grigory Ostrovsky
Doctor of history of the fine
Arts,
Professor of Hebrew University in Jerusalem
|