Graphic artist, illustrator, photographer, engraver - these are the terms used to describe Maurycy Lilien, a Polish-Jewish artist from Drohobych. Known and appreciated during his lifetime, but forgotten after his death. We would like to remind you of his work.

Drohobych - a multicultural city

The story of the outstanding Art Nouveau graphic artist, illustrator and photographer, Maurice Lilien of Drohobych, should begin with a brief glance at the history of this city. Before 1918, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later became the county seat of the Lviv Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, it was inhabited by 15,000 Poles, 8,000 Ukrainians and 17,000 Jews. Efraim Moshe (Maurycy) Lilien is associated with this provincial centre.

Maurycy Lilien and his family

Jews began to settle in Drohobych as early as 1569. With the advent of bans on their settlement in the city, they were either expelled or settled there again over the next three centuries. A new era in the history of Drohobych began in the second half of the 19th century, when deposits of petroleum were discovered in neighbouring Boryslav. The few who became rich from the oil business became millionaires. The majority of Drohobych's inhabitants, however, lived in poverty, earning their keep with hard work. In one such family, in 1874, Efraim Moshe Lilien was born. His father was a craftsman - a turner and woodcarver.

The artistic beginnings of Maurice Lilien

After finishing gymnasium in Lvov, thanks to the support of a wealthy relative, Lilien entered the School of Fine Arts in Krakow at the age of 16. After two years, he had to interrupt his studies for financial reasons. He returned to Drohobych, where in 1892 he won a graphic design competition announced by the municipal authorities to celebrate the jubilee of the poet Kornel Ujejski. He used the money he received to continue his artistic education - first in Vienna, and from 1894 in Munich - one of the European centres of the new artistic current of Jugendstil, art nouvaeu, and Art Nouveau.

While studying, Lilien earned a living as a photographer. In 1896, he received an award for his photographs from the popular magazine Jugend in those years, and from the following year Lilien's illustrations were already published regularly in the magazine.

At the beginning of the 20th century. Maurycy Lilien moved to Berlin, where he took over the art direction of the Zionist weekly Ost und West.

At the same time, he made the acquaintance of, among others, the writer Stefan Zweig and the poet Börris von Münchausen, whose poem Juda he illustrated magnificently. This edition is followed by a series of illustrations for Moris Rosenfeld's book Songs from the Ghetto . At the same time, Maurycy Lilien's works also adorned the pages of the Tygodnik Ilustrowany (Illustrated Weekly) or the Young Poland Życie (Life), and also illustrated the poem Miłość (Love ) by Jan Kasprowicz.

Maurycy Lilien and Zionism

The beginning of the 20th century was a period of rapid change in the Jews' perception of their place in world politics and economics and the development of the Zionist idea: the creation of a Jewish state in the land of Israel. The Austrian Theodor Herzl was the founder of this political trend, and Maurycy Lilien was a participant in all three of the first Zionist conventions (1901, 1903, 1905).

It was written at the time: "Lilien, the painter of Zionism, created the symbols in which, for the Zionist, his ideas, hopes and aspirations are contained".

The Holy Land and the School of Arts and Crafts

In 1901, Lilien made his first trip to historic Palestine. And in 1906, together with other artists, he founded the Besaleel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem, which still exists today. He was also its lecturer for a short time. Despite his short-lived stay, his works with biblical themes in a Zionist and Oriental context, expressed in an idealised style, had a major influence on Israel's artistic output.

Between 1908 and 1912, Lilien travelled extensively to the Holy Land, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, visiting Damascus and Beirut. In each country he made sketches and photographed the life of the local people. His illustrations to the Bible, done in ink and pen between 1908 and 1912, can be considered the pinnacle of his work. These books, published in Berlin in three volumes, have long since become a bibliographical rarity.

At the beginning of the First World War, Maurice Lilien volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian army, where he served in the press service on the Little Asia front, documenting the war effort. After the war, he settled in Brunswick, Germany, the hometown of his wife, Helene Magnus, where he died of a heart attack in August 1925 at the age of just 51.

Reception of Maurice Lilien's work

In 1914, an exhibition of Maurice Lilien's work was held at the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts in Lvov, which was highly praised. "The overall impression is unbelievable: all his works are at the highest level of graphic arts... Lilien presents us with authentic mastery," one review wrote about the exhibition.

Art critics draw attention to the significant influence that the works of the artist from Drohobych had on the development of European graphic art in the first quarter of the 20th century. During these years, Maurice Lilien's fame can only be compared to the popularity of Marc Chagall.

In the introduction to his monograph on Lilien, the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig wrote: "if one excludes the master's works from a purely painterly evaluation, one is left with his very high cultural significance, which sets this painter apart from most other artists". And further: "he was the initiator-creator everywhere".

In the words of Piotr Sitkiewicz: "Lilien was an Austro-Hungarian citizen, felt Polish, died as a German, but was considered a Jewish artist by most audiences".

Bruno Schulz was deeply fascinated by the work of Maurice Lilien, a native of Drohobych. He dedicated an essay to him, E.M. Lilien , published in several issues of the local Drohobych periodical, Przegląd Podkarpacia, in 1937-1938.

During his lifetime, Lilien enjoyed tangible success as measured, for example, by the number of exhibitions. Unfortunately, after his death, the artist was forgotten. Nowadays, his name can be found almost exclusively in scientific publications, and the only posthumous exhibition was organised in Munich only at the beginning of the 21st century.