Oscar Rabin was a leader of the Lianozovo Group of underground artists near Moscow from the 1950s to the 1970s and one of the organizers of the “bulldozer exhibition” (1974), so called because it was bulldozed by the Soviet authorities. In 1978, Rabine was exiled from the Soviet Union and settled in Paris. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions, including a show at the State Russian Museum after the fall of the Soviet Union (St. Petersburg, 1993).
The title of this painting, Flight into Egypt, refers to the story in the Christian Gospels in which Joseph and Mary flee with the infant Jesus to Egypt to escape the wrath of King Herod. Rabin, born…
Maurycy Gottlieb saw his art as essential to his universalist vision, namely, as a way to improve Polish-Jewish relations. As he said, “I am a Jew and a Pole and, God willing, I want to serve both.”…