Hvolez, Rafael Moiseevich

He was born on April 25, 1913 in Vilnius in the Russian Empire (now - Vilnius , Lithuania ) ^[1] . He received an initial Jewish religious education, then studied at a Jewish gymnasium, which he graduated in 1930. He took private lessons from artists Moses Leibovsky (1876-1942), Alexander Shturman (1869-1944) and Behr Zalkind (1879-1944), attended evening classes at the School of Art Crafts established by the Vilnius Society of Artists, which he graduated in 1934. After the creation of the Junge Vilne [Young Vilnius] group by the group of Jewish writers and artists in 1929, R. M. Hvolez became involved in his work, striving to combine the national and Jewish religious heritage with modernist trends in art. In 1933, R. M. Hvolez made his debut at the exhibition of young artists of Vilnius. In 1935, at the exhibition of the Junge Vilne group, his work Homeless Boy was awarded the prize for the best portrait. Since 1936, he participated in the activities of the Society of Vilnius Jewish Artists, and was part of his board. In 1938, his first personal exhibition was held in Vilnius, at which about a hundred works were presented, not one of which was preserved. He taught painting in Jewish schools, and after the occupation of part of Poland by the Soviet Union in 1940, he became the director of the school of fine arts at the House of Folk Art in the city of Vileyka (in 1939-1944 - the regional center as part of the Byelorussian SSR ).

At the time of the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was in Minsk , from where he managed to evacuate to the Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) region, where he was part of the railway construction battalion; his pregnant wife Marianna was captured by the Nazis on the road from Vilnius to Minsk and died. In 1942, he himself settled in the village of Krasnye Baki on the banks of the Vetluga River , where he designed events held at the House of Culture, painted scenery, and also painted portraits of dead soldiers from photographs. There he married the evacuated Muscovite Maria Ponomareva, in 1944 their eldest son Alexander was born. After a short stay in Moscow in 1945, Rafael Hvoles returned to Vilnius, where he learned that his parents Moshe (1888-1942) and Khava-Leia (1896-1942) and three sisters were killed by the Nazis . Since then, the ruins of his native city, especially the Jewish quarter, its streets and courtyards have become the main motive for the work of R. M. Hvoles. The cycle of works “Vilnius Ghetto” created by him is a unique artistic, historical and ethnographic document. In 1951 he was admitted to the Union of Artists of the USSR . In 1944-1956 lived in Vilnius at ul. Tilto 13, in the same place in 1951 the youngest son of the artist, Milius was born; in honor of R. M. Hvolez, a memorial plaque was erected on this house on August 24, 2004.

In 1959 he emigrated to Poland, where he continued to paint and watercolors, drew posters for theater and cinema, created a series of monotypes ^[2] (in this technique - a print on paper from an image painted on a smooth surface of glass - he worked hard, since 1958) "Biblical motives", illustrated the Jewish books ^[3] . In Poland, a series of personal exhibitions of the artist took place, in 1964 he was elected chairman of the commission on culture of the Public and Cultural Society of Jews of Poland ( Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne Żydów w Polsce, TSKŻ) . With the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, he traveled to Spain and Morocco , where, in particular, he created a series of sketches of synagogues and their parishioners. In connection with a sharp change in the attitude of the Polish authorities towards Jewish social and cultural life, in the late 1960s he decided to leave Poland .

Since 1969, he constantly lived in Paris . He participated in many exhibitions both in France , and in the USA and Canada . In 1983, in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of his creative activity, he was awarded the medal of the city of Paris. He regularly visited Israel , where since 1957 two artist sisters lived; there in 1986-1987. at the Jerusalem Center for Catastrophe and Heroism Yad Vashem and the Museum of the Ghetto Fighters , his last lifetime solo exhibitions were held. In Israel in 1994 he was awarded the prize. Itzik Manger for merits in the preservation and development of Yiddish culture , and in 1995 - the prize awarded to the figures of Yiddish culture by the House of them. Sholom Aleichem (a large stained-glass window “Memory” was installed in this House, made according to his project). Passed away in Paris on March 31, 2002.

In 2004, 2009 and 2012 in Vilnius , three posthumous exhibitions of the artist took place posthumously ^[4] . Two monographic albums, several booklets and a set of postcards dedicated to his work were published in Lithuania , Israel , Poland and France .