Description: Avraham Soskin, large retouched photo portrait of Moshe Smilansky, Tel-Aviv, Signed by Soskin in Pencil, 30x23.5 cm., damping to lower edge and upper right corner of cardboard, some small rubbing places. AVRAHAM SOSKIN (1881-1963) was the quintessential ?Tel Aviv photographer? in the first decades following the city?s establishment. His photograph of the historic lottery of housing parcels that took place on April 11, 1909, on the Jaffa sand dunes is the most frequently reproduced and widely disseminated image of early Tel Aviv. Soon thereafter, the streets of the Ahuzat Bayit suburb were laid out and the first buildings erected. From 1914 to 1933 Soskin maintained his studio at 24 Herzl Street, down the block from the new town?s principal landmark, the Herzliah Gymnasium. After he closed his studio he supported himself through a typesetting (zincography) business. The leaders of the Zionist movement, both in Palestine and abroad, were well aware of the power of photography as a medium for publicity and propaganda. MOSHE SMILANSKY(1874-1953) was a pioneer of the First Aliyah, a Zionist leader who advocated peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, a farmer, and a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction literary works.