Moissey Kogan

Moissey Kogan (12 March 1879 – 3 March 1943 ) was a Bessarabian Jewish medalist, sculptor and graphic artist who spent much of his time in Paris and travelled throughout Europe. He specialised in creating sculptures and graphic art based on the female form. The Moissey Kogan Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture & Prints Project is in the process of compiling a scholarly catalogue raisonné of Moissey Kogan’s sculpture and prints, and is preparing a comprehensive monograph on the artist’s life and career. The Moissey Kogan Archive of the European Cultural Foundation, in Bonn, collects and captures the entire work of the artist. Kogan is sometimes confused with Russian painter Moisey Kogan (1924–2001), who specialized in colorful oil paintings of Russian village life, landscapes, churches etc.

Kogan was murdered in Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Artistic career

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

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 was murdered two weeks later. It wasn't until the 1960s that his fate was discovered.

According to the art-historian Gerhart Söhn: The fragile grace of his figures, their sensual and spiritual body language are of Hellenistic-looking cheerfulness. The inner restlessness that Kogan has driven around his life has come to rest in his art. The quiet world of his work is timeless, and yet he maintains himself alongside the great currents of contemporary sculpture. Kogan's graphic works are also devoted exclusively to female figures. The visual language is the same as in the sculptural works. The soft contours and lines of the body determine the composition of the picture, not infrequently at the expense of anatomical correctness. Even expressive expressions avoid everything that is angular.

Kogan's works are in many museums, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, the Kunsthalle Bremen and in the art collection of the Essen Folkwang Museum. He's also in the Moritzburg National Gallery in Halle, in the Hamburg Museum of Arts and Crafts, The Haubrich Collection at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the Städtische Galerie at Lenbachhaus in Munich. He is also in the collection of MoMA.