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Pen, Yehudah

Person · http://data.judaicalink.org/data/ep/1602690

(1854–1937), painter, graphic artist, teacher, and founder of the “Vitebsk school.” Yehudah (Yudel, Iurii; patronymic Moiseevich, Movshevich) Pen was born in the shtetl Novo-Aleksandrovsk, Kovno guberniia (now Zarasai, Lith.), to an impoverished family. He attended a local heder but did not show much interest in his studies. Instead he devoted most of his time to drawing, for which he showed great talent. According to Pen himself, his talent found its application in the sphere of traditional Jewish art. He drew ornamental letters and captions in books, decorated Purim gragers (noisemakers), and created mizraḥ (Eastern wall) plaques. He painted portraits of shtetl dwellers and various imaginary characters, an activity that brought him great satisfaction, but made his mother very angry. At her insistence Yehudah was sent to Dinaburg (Dvinsk; now Daugavpils, Latvia) at the end of 1867, to become an apprentice house painter.

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