Moses Soyer was a Russian-born American realist painter. After immigrating in 1912 to the United States and settling in New York, Soyer studied at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and the Ferrer Art School. A 1926 scholarship permitted Soyer to study drawing in Europe, which strengthened his commitment to figurative art. When many other New York artists began experimenting with abstract expressionism in the 1940s, Soyer continued painting in his realist style, portraying scenes of everyday life with an honest, unembellished yet elegant aesthetic. Soyer was elected to the National Academy of Design and the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1963 and 1966, respectively.
Aleksander Lesser’s most famous painting is The Funeral of the Five Victims, which depicts the public funeral of five men shot by the Russian military on March 2, 1861 during a rally calling for…
The Great Synagogue of Lutsk (Łuck) in Ukraine was built in 1626. Renaissance in style, the synagogue is an example of a fortress synagogue, built not only as a house of worship but also with the…
This is a night of vigil for me,
in the shudder of my soul
I shall conceal
the secret of my youth.
I shall stand on guard:
No sleep nor slumber!
And in just one moment
the veil was taken away.
A…