Ben BANAY

Shaul Bauman (1915-2005) was born in Wiżna, Poland in 1915. There he received instruction in painting and printmaking from the famous Polish-Jewish artist Moritz Hirschfeld. At age 19, Banay immigrated to Palestine and lived in a Kibbutz.  Although he was always an artist, Banay had an extensive military career. At the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the British army. He changed his name to Shaul Banay during this same period, and also at times went by Ben Banay. During Israel’s War of Independence, Banay was commander of a heavy artillery detachment. Throughout his military service, he spent all his free time creating paintings and prints, and after the war in Europe ended, the tragedy of the Holocaust haunted him and changed the content of his artwork forever.  Banay’s parents were killed in Auschwitz.
Banay’s
 impassioned response drove him to make a new and raw body of work.  In 1965, his one-man exhibit, Visions of the Holocaust, opened in New York, then traveled to Paris.  An interview at that time quotes him: “I paint with one brush and two colors. The brush is my heart. The colors are the blood and fire of Treblinka, Maidanek, and Auschwitz.” His creative output seems to have dwindled through the 1970s. He passed away in Paris, in 2005, and his body was moved to its final resting place at Kibbutz Ganigar, Israel where he had lived for so many years. Known as a painter, engraver, and master glassmaker, his artistic legacy bears witness to the horrors of the Jewish genocide, and to the solace found in artistic expressions. 

Shaul Banay - Ben Banay - Mm Papillon - Mrs Butterfly - 1975 - detail1 Sold
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Ms. Butterfly

BANAY, Ben

Mm. Papillon (original French title) Cutout etching and aquatint printed in color on Arches wove paper.Edition of 100.Published by Georgetown Graph...

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