Boris Lurie was born in 1924 in Leningrad, Russia, but grew up in Riga, Latvia.

At the age of 16, he became a prisoner of the Nazis and was sent for 4 years to Buchenwald and other concentration camps. Lurie's mother, sister, grandmother and girlfriend were shot in the Rumbula Forest on the outskirts of Riga in December 1941.

The mass murder at Rumbula was one of the largest atrocities committed by the Nazis within two days, resulting in the killing of approximately 30,000 Jews.

After liberation, Lurie remained in Germany for another year and worked for the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps. He moved to New York in 1946 and began his artistic career there. From 1954 to 1955, he lived and worked in Paris.

Boris Lurie first attracted widespread attention in 1960. During that year, together with Sam Goodman and Stanley Fisher, he created the NO!Art movement. The main goal of NO!Art was to bring real-life subjects back into art. In this way, it stood in opposition to the two most popular movements of the era — abstract expressionism and pop art.

Critics and curators of the time largely rejected Lurie's art and NO!art. As he stated: “The art market is nothing but a racket. There is an established pyramid in which all those who wish to profit from it must participate, if they are allowed to participate.” Nevertheless, Lurie continued to create his extremely charged political and social imagery, and in 1963 his famous “Railroad Collage,” depicting a pin-up girl in front of concentration camp victims, caused a great sensation.

He died in 2008 in New York. Boris is buried at the Hofe HaCarmel cemetery in Haifa, Israel.

Boris Lurie Art Foundation