Ephraim Moses Lilien: Jugendstil Illustrator and Zionist Photographer

Ephraim Moses Lilien, born on May 23, 1874, in Drohobych (then Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Ukraine), was a prominent Jewish artist associated with Jugendstil, the German variant of Art Nouveau. He apprenticed with a sign maker before studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków from 1889 to 1893, during Jan Matejko's tenure as head. In 1899, he moved to Berlin and joined the artists' group Die Kommenden. Lilien worked mainly in etching and illustration, becoming a leading contributor to Jugend magazine, from which Jugendstil takes its name. He produced book illustrations, often on Jewish themes, such as those for Morris Rosenfeld's Lieder des Ghetto (1902). An early Zionist, he photographed Theodor Herzl at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basel (1901). He traveled multiple times to Ottoman Palestine, including a 1906 trip with Boris Schatz to help establish the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, for which he designed the emblem. Herzl served as his muse, embodying a strong, modern Jewish man—a rebellion against antisemitic stereotypes. Lilien depicted Herzl as a muscular, Moses-like figure. He also explored sexuality, portraying women as equals in control of their own sexuality, as in The Silent Song. He died of a heart attack on July 18, 1925, at age 51.