Abram (Abraham) Krol (French - Polish, 1919-2001)

Abram (Abraham) Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland.
A Hasidic Jew, whose masterwork is an edition of the Torah with 187 engravings, he emigrated to France in 1938, where he spent the rest of his life.
In 1938, Krol's first intention was to become a civil engineer, to which end he enrolled at the University of Caen.
In 1939 at the beginning of World War II he joined the Foreign Legion.
After he was demobilized, he became a mechanic in a garage in Avignon.
Although Jewish, he survived the war with a false identity.

In 1943, Krol started studying to be an artist, taking courses in sculpture at the School of Fine Art in Avignon. He also began studying painting and self-described himself as a “Sunday painter.”
Armed with false identity papers, Krol moved to Nazi-occupied Paris in 1944.
The first exhibition of his work was in 1946 in the Katia Granoff Gallery in Paris.
His most recent was in 2008 at the Dijon public library.

After the war, Krol took up engraving, studying that art form with the engraver Joseph Hecht.
Krol reflected his Hasidic childhood often using Biblical themes in his art works. He said, “during all my years of childhood I had read the Bible endlessly. I came back to the Bible because I was on solid ground there. It was part of the assertion of my own truth after a time of complacency. It seemed to me that in painting or engraving there were so many reefs to avoid, so many possibilities of setback, that I had to have all the odds in my favor do what I could—say what I had to say”.
Alongside his copious output of individual engravings, from 1949 Krol began creating livres d'artiste; in 1952 he won both the prix du livre illustré and the prix Daragnès.

In Britain, Krol's achievement was honored in the 1994 exhibition at the V&A, Three Masters of Engraving: Roger Vieillard, Albert Flocon, Abram Krol.
Krol illustrated over 20 literary works from the late 1940s through the 1960s. He also engraved medals for the Paris mint and painted murals for schools in France. He designed tapestries and painted approximately 200 enamels.
Museums and libraries which own Krol’s art works include the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the British Museum; Houghton Library, Harvard; Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

Krol has had numerous one-man shows throughout Europe, Brazil, and in California.
In 1960, Krol was invited to exhibit at the Venice Biennale. He was awarded the Critics Prize in 1958.
He also won the Feneon Prize among other honors.
Krol died on October 9, 2001.