George Aleeff

George Aleeff (1887-1970) was a Russian painter and graphic artist who had originally served as a private bodyguard to Tsar Nikolai II. Following the Russian revolution, Aleeff joined the White Army, fighting for the reinstatement of the Tsarist regime. However, with the execution of the entire Russian royal family at the hands of Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the defeat of the Tsarist White Army, Aleeff fled to Palestine. Here, he settled and began painting scenes that captured some of the historical events which eventually would lead to independence for the countries of the region. A staunch supporter of Palestinian independence, Aleeff rejected the new Jewish state and ended up fleeing Palestine for Jordan as part of the great Palestinian Exodus in 1948. For the rest of his life, he lived in Jordan as an exile, serving his new country as loyally and diligently as he had the country of his birth.