BRAZER, ABRAM

BRAZER, ABRAM (1892–1942), painter, graphic artist, and sculptor. Brazer was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia. He studied art at the Kishinev Art School in 1905–10 and at the École des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in 1912–14. He became close to a group of Jewish artists of La Ruche studios in Paris and executed several portraits of its members. He exhibited at the salons in Paris. In 1916, he returned to Russia and settled in Petrograd. He was a member of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and participated in its exhibitions in Petrograd and Moscow (1916, 1917). In 1917, Brazer showed his works at "World of Art" exhibition in Petrograd, and later in the same year moved to Vitebsk. In 1918–23, Brazer taught painting and sculpture at the Vitebsk People's Art School established by marc chagall . In 1924, Brazer moved to Minsk. In the 1920s and 1930s, he participated in many exhibits in Minsk and Moscow. Working in all the genres, including landscapes and still lifes, he gave a prominent place to Jewish themes in his work. He executed a number of sculptural portraits of leading figures in Jewish culture and art, among them the artist Y. Pan (1921, 1926), the Jewish actor S. Mikhoels (1926), the Yiddish poet I. Kharik (1932), and others. He had a one-man   show in 1941 in Minsk. When the war broke out, he missed the chance to be evacuated from Minsk and remained in the ghetto, where he perished. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Exhibition of Works of A.M. Brazer and L.M. Leytman. Cat. Minsk (1941), 1–14 (Rus.); M.S. Katser, The Byelorussian Soviet Sculpture (1954), 5–14 (Rus.); History of Belorussian Art, vol. 4, 1917–1939 (1990), 153–60, 270–74 (Belorussian). (Hillel Kazovsky (2nd ed.)