Moissej Kogan (1879-1943) - Woman, Pencil on Paper.

Moissej Kogan (1879-1943) - Woman, Pencil on Paper.

Signed.

40x30cm.

Stains.

Moissey Kogan (1879-1943) was an East European-Jewish medalist, sculptor and graphic artist who spent much of his time in Paris and traveled throughout Europe. He specialized in creating sculptures and graphic art based on the female form. The Moissey Kogan Archive of the European Cultural Foundation, in Bonn, collects and captures the entire work of the artist.

Moissey Kogan (also known as Moise or Moshe) was born to a Jewish merchant in the town of Orhei. From an early age, he was interested in craftsmanship and acquired his artistic skills auto-didactically. In 1889, he moved to Nagybanya, an artist's colony in Hungary, where he was taught by the painter Simon Hollosy. From 1903, Kogan spent time in the Bavarian city of Munich, where he enrolled at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, studying under the sculptor, Wilhelm von Rumann.

His artistic career began in 1908, when he exhibited for the first time in Paris, at the Salon d'Automne.

The following year, he became one of the founding members of the Expressionist group Neue Kunstlervereinigung. During this period in Paris, Kogan was supported by the sculptors Rodin and Maillol. His talents were noticed by the art collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus, who worked for Kogan in later years, and offered the young artist a teaching position at the Folkwang Museum in Hagen. This situation was short-lived, and Kogan moved back to Munich, and then Paris, At the invitation of Henry van de Velde, he briefly taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar. He led a transient life during this period, and lived variously in Switzerland and Berlin as well. In Berlin, he was promoted by the prominent art-historian Max Sauerlandt and in the 1920s, Kogan's art was exhibited alongside artists from the Berlin Secession.

Kogan mixed mainly in artistic circles, and maintained relationships with figures such as Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Maillol. He was an active participant in the Salon d'Automme, where he served on the jury and was eventually elected vice-president of the sculptural department in 1925. From 1925 until his death, he varied his time between Paris and the Netherlands, where he had connections with collectors and artisans. In 1933, he ceased travel to Germany on account of the increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere, indeed some of his works were exhibited at the Entartete Kunst exhibition in Berlin, 1938.

From the late 1930s, Kogan began to withdraw from public life. On 11 February 1943, he was deported from Drancy internment camp to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he would die two weeks later. It wasn't until the 1960s that his fate was discovered.