Paul Păun (Bucharest, 5 September 1915 – Haifa, 8 April 1994)

Paul Păun, born Zaharia Herşcovici, was the youngest of two children of the Moldavian Jewish couple Helena and Rudolf Herşcovici. He chose the pseudonym Paul Păun while still in high school.

In 1930, aged 15, he became a member of the avant-garde group Alge, and started publishing in the magazine of the same name. In early 1940, he co-founded the Bucharest Surrealist group. Alongside his avant-garde activities, Păun completed his studies of medicine and surgery. For months during the Second World War, Păun, as a Jewish doctor, was made to work in forced labour camps for Russian prisoners of war. During a brief public break within the Surrealist group in the winter of 1945, Păun had a solo exhibition of figurative Surrealist ink drawings, followed in 1946 by a group exhibition.

After a failed attempt to leave Romania illegally in 1948, and after his first two applications to emigrate to Israel were rejected, he finally received an exit permit in 1961. Settling in Haifa, he resumed his medical practice and his work as an artist. He remained active until the 1990s, producing ever larger ink and pencil drawings.

Known mainly as a poet, Paul Păun was also a fascinating draftsman. Although he was entirely self-taught, he mastered drawing technique in a surprising way, and his line had the precision of a trained professional. His drawings are either Surrealist, with haunted spaces and fragments of faces and bodies, or abstract.