Ze’ev Raban, born Wolf Rawicki , was a leading painter, decorative artist, and industrial designer of the Bezalel school style, and was one of the founders of the Israeli art world.
Two years after following Schatz's call, Raban joined the faculty of the Bezalel school. Here he headed the Repoussé Department, taught anatomy and composition, painting and sculpture. Raban also became director of the Graphics Press and the Industrial Art Studio. In 1914 his designs constituted the majority of the works created in the Bezalel workshop. Raban taught at Bezalel until the school had to close down in 1929 due to financial difficulties.
In 1921, he participated in the historic art exhibition at the Tower of David in Jerusalem, the first exhibit of Hebrew artists in Palestine, which became the first of an annual series of such exhibits.
Artistic style and range
Style
Raban is regarded as a leading member of the Bezalel school art style, in which artists portrayed both Biblical and Zionist themes in a style influenced by the European Jugendstil and by traditional Persian and Syrian styles. Like other European art nouveau artists of the period, such as Alphonse Mucha, Raban combined commercial commissions with uncommissioned paintings. "Raban easily navigated a wealth of artistic sources and mediums, borrowing and combining ideas from East and West, fine arts and crafts from past and present. His works blended European neoclassicism, Symbolist art and Art Nouveau with oriental forms and techniques to form a distinctive visual lexicon. Versatile and productive, he lent this unique style to most artistic mediums, including the fine arts, illustration, sculpture, repousee, jewellery design, and ceramics."
Raban collaborated with other artists to produce versions of his work as ceramic tile murals, of the so-called "Bezalel ceramics" type, a number of which can still be sees on buildings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, including the Bialik House. The 1925 Lederberg house, at the intersection of Rothschild Boulevard and Allenby Street features a series of large ceramic murals designed by Raban. The four murals show a Jewish pioneer sowing and harvesting, a shepherd, and Jerusalem with a verse from, "Again I will rebuild thee and thous shalt be rebuilt."
Architectural decoration
Raban designed the decorative elements of such important Jerusalem buildings as the King David Hotel and the Jerusalem YMCA.
Judaica
Raban also designed a wide range of Jewish religious objects, including Hanukkah menorahs, temple windows, and Torah arks. Temple Emanuel has a notable set of six windows, each 16-feet high]. The windows were commissioned from Raban in 1922 by Rabbi Samuel Rosinger. Each window depicts an event in the life of one of the principal Hebrew prophets, Jeremiah, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Moses, and Isaiah. In 2015 one of his works received international attention. The President of Israel, Reuven Rivlin visited at the White House with U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for the December 2015 Hannukah celebration. Israel's First LadyNechama Rivlin joined her husband in lighting a menorah made in Israel by Raban, and loaned by the North Carolina Museum of Art's Judaic Art Gallery. The White House noted: "The design elements of this menorah underscore a theme of coexistence, and its presence in the collection of the Judaic Art Gallery in North Carolina highlights the ties between American Jews and Israeli Jews and the vibrancy of Jewish life in the American South."
