A major twentieth century painter, sculptor, printmaker and stage designer, Arbit Blatas began exhibiting his art in his native Lithuania at the age of fifteen. Six years later (1928) he left for Paris and became the youngest member of the avant-guarde 'School of Paris' which included such artists as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Vlaminck, Utrillo and Chaim Soutine. By 1929, Arbit Blatas was a regular exhibitor at both the Salon D'Automne and the Salon des Tuileries. Throughout the 1930's Arbit Blatas continued to be a major force within the circle of modern French art. In 1934 his first one-man show was held in New York and in 1936 both the Jeu de Paume Museum, Paris, and the Musee de Grenoble purchased his paintings.   With the outbreak of World War Two, Arbit Blatas was forced to flee from Europe. He settled in New York in 1941 and eventually became an American citizen. After the end of the war Blatas lived and worked in New York, Paris and Venice. Perhaps his most famous work of art is his great sculpture consisting of seven bronze tablets entitled, "Monument of the Holocaust", Venice, 1979.   Today the art of Arbit Blatas is included in such prestigious collections as the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Jeu de Paume and Musee Georges Pompidou, Paris, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Venice and the Jerusalem Museum and the Tel-Aviv Museum, Israel. During his great career Arbit Blatas received such honors as being elected a life member of the Salon D'Automne and Officier de la Legion D'Honneur (France), and was awarded the Gold Medal for the City of Venice, the Presidential Medal of Italy and the Medal of Masada (Israel).   In a number of Arbit Blatas's greatest works of sculpture, painting and lithography he commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. In these moving works of art he also pays homage to his mother, who died in the gas chambers, and his father, who survived Dachau. Babi Yar was probably created around 1979 when Arbit Blatas was commissioned to create drawings for the nine-part television series entitled, "Holocaust". It depicts, of course, one of the blackest and most barbarous episodes of Nazi war crimes. In September of 1941 German forces captured the Ukrainian city of Kiev. In a two day period (September 29 and 30), thirty-four thousand Jewish men, women and children were brought to a suburban ravine known as Babi Yar and systematically machine-gunned to death. Simply, Babi Yar is one of the most appalling massacres in history and will forever leave a black mark on the future of mankind and civilization. This large and powerful Arbit Blatas lithograph conveys the absolute horror of this monumental tragedy.