ISRAELI AND INTERNATIONAL ART KING DAVID HOTEL JERUSALEM SUNDAY 30 NOVEMBER 2008 7:30 P.M.
התצוגה:
גלריה מצארט ,תל אביב
מנהל ובעלים: לוסיאן קריאף מנכ"ל: אורי רוזנבך מומחים: אורן מגדל, מומחה אמנות ישראלית oren@lucienkrief.co.il לוסיאן קריאף, מומחה אסכולת פריז lucien@lucienkrief.co.il שירות לקוחות: ברברה אפלבאום barbara@lucienkrief.co.il ריצ'ארד סלמנוביץ richard@lucienkrief.co.il כספים: סטלה קוסטה stella@lucienkrief.co.il לוגיסטיקה ומשלוחים: רייזי גודווין reizy@lucienkrief.co.il
רח' לואי פסטר ,4יפו העתיקה ,תל אביב 22-17בנובמבר 2008 שני 17בנובמבר 24:00-19:00 שלישי -חמישי 20-18בנובמבר 22:00-11:00 שישי 21בנובמבר 14:00-11:00 שבת 22בנובמבר 24:00-18:30
גלריה מצארט ,ירושלים דוד המלך 21ירושלים 30-24בנובמבר 2008
שני 24בנובמבר 24:00-19:00 שלישי-חמישי 27-25בנובמבר 22:00-11:00 שישי 28בנובמבר 14:00-11:00 שבת 29בנובמבר 24:00-18:30 ראשון 30בנובמבר 14:00-11:00 המכירה: יום ראשון 30.11.08בשעה 8:00בערב המכירה גם באתר ebayבכתובת: www.ebayliveauctions.com הקטלוג און-ליין בכתובת: www.artonline.co.il מכירה פומבית 110
דוד המלך 21ירושלים טלפון (כולל באולם המכירה) 02-6251049
Karl Friedrich Heinrich Werner, a prominent nineteenth century German academic painter, was born in Weimar in 1808. During the twenties of that century, he studied painting in Leipzig under H.V. Schnorr von Carolsfeld; subsequently, from 1829, he studied architecture in Munich. Werner became an independent painter in 1831, promptly launching also into tours of Europe. A keen traveler, his expeditions brought him to Egypt and Palestine between the years 1862 – 1864. As a painter, he gained renown with his aquarelles of Jerusalem landscapes. In the words of Yehoshua Ben-Arieh “Werner’s work is notable for its veracity, meticulous attention to architectural detail, the rough texture of the stones and their form, and the manner of construction of the buildings. Werner achieved admiration as one of the most respected of European aquarellists.” (Painting Palestine in the Nineteenth Century, Yad Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, 1992, pp. 182) Werner’s scrupulously academic approach stands out in the painting on sale. In comparison with other artists who painted Palestinian landscapes in the nineteenth century, particularly Gustave Bauernfeind, Werner stands apart in this painting in his effort to observe how figures blend into the architecture. The figures of women at prayer, white kerchiefs on their heads, merge perfectly with the white stones of the Western Wall to their rear. Likewise in the men’s enclave on the left,
where we notice more movement and variety, it is evident that the light blue attire of the worshippers fit in with the light blue and green hues of the stones in that section. Like Bauernfeind subsequently, Werner preferred to depict the Western Wall from south to north. This enabled him to comprise in his works more architectural details – windows and door – thereby expressing his avid interest in architecture. The choice to depict the vista from this angle enabled the artist to present a more variegated and simultaneously, more organized painting, with the groups of worshippers lined up along the Wall, divided up into groups, whereby each receives its unique nature and stands out against the other. Note for example the group of men standing in the depth of the painting with their brown hats, distinct from another group of three men seated alongside a man in lighter attire. Werner’s fondness for depicting details and textures (notably of the Wall stones, but also of the clothing of the Hassid to the left) entirely overshadows the organization, presenting us with a lively and vivacious portrayal. Werner’s works are on display at leading museums in Germany and England. H.F. Schweers, Gemälde in deutschen Museen. Munich, K.G. Saur, 2005, part I, volume 3, p 1397. O. M.
2v CARL FRIEDRICH WERNER 1808-1894 (German)
The Wailing Wall, 1863 pencil and watercolor on cardboard 40 x 53.3 cm. (15 ⅝ x 20 ¾ in.) signed and dated lower right, inscribed on reverse Provenance: Phoenix collection, Israel. $60,000-80,000 Photograph c. 1920’s
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Bauernfeind, 1890’s
J. L. Gerome, 1869
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5v T. M. TEMPLETON 19th century (British)
View of Jerusalem, 1889 oil on canvas 25.3 x 46 cm. (9 ⅞ x 18 in.) signed and dated lower left $32,000-38,000
6v CORNELIS VREEDENBURGH 1880-1946 (Dutch)
Jerusalem landscape watercolor 47 x 31.5 cm. (18 ⅜ x 12 ¼ in.) signed lower right $4,000-6,000
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חסרה התמונה
Paintings of flowers by Nahum Gutman are very rare indeed. To tell the truth, the only one that we know about was painted in 1927 and represents a colorful vase of chrysanthemums (partially wrapped in cellophane), placed on a window sill looking over a Jaffe orchard. We saw in these flowers a sensual – erotic message of the artist to beyond the secret of the orchard outside. The present painting of flowers is different: smaller, more intimate, without a vase, without a window, with a minimum of colors. About fifteen flowers richly scented flowers are scattered over paper or pieces of material. We are satisfied with a monochrome that wavers between brown (table?) and beiges, the little bit of yellow and the white. Gutman’s brown monochrome reminds us of the painting of the Tower of David that he painted just before 1930, which could provide us with the date of the present painting. At the same time, family testimony ascribes the painting to the “Tower of David” exhibition in 1926, where Gutman was one of the 42 artists exhibiting. This was a very short time after his return to Israel following five years of study and creativity in Europe, in any event, the second half of the twenties. This marvelous painting, which displays an integral elegance and sensitivity in the line and movement of the brush, does the impossible: it transforms a glance into a scent. As if by limiting range of colors it focuses our glance on the strong scent of these tropical flowers, which can be found growing in Tel-
Aviv gardens during the summer. These are indeed the flowers of the white plumeria, also called in Israel pitana. whose fragrant flowers probably overwhelmed the young Nahum Gutman upon his return, and which he cut or gathered up from the floor and brought to the studio. Pitana lovers know that when the flowers begin to lose their petals, their scent is even stronger. In Gutman’s world, flowers symbolized optimism: when he described in his memoirs the pot of geraniums of his neighbor in Little Tel Aviv, he ended with the words: “The world has become beautiful and promises a good future.” (“A small city with few people in it”, 1959). In the same book, when he describes the scent of the orchard flowers, he quickly added: “This is where the magic begins”. And when he came to the Jaffe orchard, the scent of the flowers had already turned into an erotic force: “Sometimes men with colorful sashes came out of the orchard, with fragrant pitana flowers behind their ears. ”Indeed these are the same pitana flowers of our painting. We will learn that the painting of the scent before us is an expression of the same erotic Mediterranean sensuality which Gutman creates. And let’s not be mistaken, the restrained colors is none other than an expression of self restraint in light of the aroma intoxicating the artist. A delicate and soft painting, a painting which is entirely perfume. A painting of courtship? Gideon Ofrat
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15 v ABEL PANN 1883-1963 (Israeli)
And Sara laughed
pastel crayons on carton 40 x 42 cm. (15 ⅝ x 16 ⅜ in.) signed upper left Provenance: Rosenfeld Gallery Tel Aviv; Sotheby’s Tel Aviv April 2003 lot 32 $12,000-18,000
16 ABEL PANN 1883-1963 (Israeli)
Rachel, 1930’s pastel crayons on paper 61 x 45 cm. (23 ¾ x 17 ½ in.) signed lower right Pann-Sarah-Tel-Aviv Museum
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$32,000-45,000
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24 YAACOV EISENSCHER 1896-1980 (Israeli)
Country landscape oil on canvas mounted on cardboard 38.5 x 46.5 cm. (15 x 18 ⅛ in.) signed lower right $4,000-6,000
25 AARON M. DEJEZ Early 20th century (Israeli)
Tiberias,1920’s Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes, oil on masonite 66 x 79 cm. (25 ¾ x 30 ¾ in.) signed lower right $10,000-12,000
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26 YOEL TENENBAUM (TENE) 1899-1975 (Israeli)
Lake Tiberias from Ginossar,1952 oil on canvas 63 x 92.5 cm. (24 ⅝ x 36 ⅛ in.) signed and dated lower right $3,800-5,500
27 SHIMSHON HOLZMAN 1907-1986 (Israeli)
Double sided painting
Galilee Landscape, 1936 (recto)
Bouquet of Flowers (verso)
oil on canvas 45.5 x 54 cm. (17 ¾ x 21 in.) signed and dated lower left (English) lower right (Hebrew) $9,000-12,000
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28 YAAKOV EISENBERG 1897-1962 (Israeli)
Jerusalem oil on canvas 50 x 65.4 cm. (19 ½ x 25 ½ in.) signed lower left in Hebrew and lower right in English $2,000-2,500
29 ARIEH LUBIN 1897-1980 (Israeli)
Still life with flowers and metal jug oil on canvas 47 x 54 cm. (18 ⅜ x 21 in.) signed lower left $3,000-4,000
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חסרה התמונה
30 ZVI MAIROVITCH 1911-1973 (Israeli)
Double sided painting
On the road to Jerusalem (recto) Houses in Jerusalem (verso) oil on board 52 x 57.5 cm. (20 ¼ x 22 ½ in.) signed lower right signed again on verso lower right $7,000-9,000
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3 1. Balloon Vendor, 1920s 2. Arab with flower, 1925 Tel Aviv Museum 3. Arabs at a Cafe, 1920s
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Pinchas Litvinovsky was born in Ukraine in 1894 to a family of traders. He attended the art academy in Odessa, where he met Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel art academy, who persuaded him to emigrate to Palestine. After a brief sojourn, he went back to Petrograd, finally returning to settle in Palestine in 1919. He and his wife Lissa set up house in Jerusalem, where they resided with some intervals for most of their lives. In the twenties, Litvinovsky took part in the first exhibitions of Israeli art at David’s Citadel; from 1926, he also exhibited at the “Modern Art” shows at the Ohel Shem theatre in Tel Aviv. He was one of the leading artists in the “modern” group, alongside Rubin, Gutman, Paldi and Gliksberg. In the thirties, following upon a visit to Paris, he fell under the influence of French artists, particularly Georges Rouault and painters of the French school. In 1935, he held his first solo exhibit at Bezalel. During this period, he associated with a group of artists, the most prominent being Moshe Mokady and Ziona Tajar, joining them in establishing an artists’ colony at Motza Elit, which remained there till 1941.In 1939, Litvinovsky received the Dizengoff prize; in 1980 he was awarded the Israel Prize. A comprehensive exhibition of his work was held at the Israel Museum in 1990 some years after his demise. The work “Figures in Jerusalem” is one of a group of watercolours that Litvinovsky created in Jerusalem in the twenties. The picture perfectly represents the primal primitivism described by Dorith LeVite in “The Story of Israeli Art”. As she puts it, “If we regard Reuven’s pictures such as ‘Shabbat in the Colony’ (1922), Litvinovsky’s pictures ‘The Idyll’, ‘Arab Café’ … we will observe elements characteristic of religious art: two-dimensionality, a clean palette, frontal positioning and contour framing. The blending together of a style with religious characteristics, and primitive naïve qualities, stems from those artists’ definition of themselves as primal. The primitive was perceived as original and primeval, not backward. The connection with the soil generated this affinity with primitive characteristics, which struck the artists of that time as expressing the religious nature of the landscape and the primacy they sensed” with regard to the landscapes and vistas of this new land. (The Story of Israeli Art, Benyamin Tammuz, Dorith Le-Vite, Gideon Ofrat, Masada, Israel, 1991, pp. 46 – 47). By comparison with other painters on display at the renowned 1926 exhibition by “the group of modern artists” at Ohel Shem, Tel Aviv, this work displays “a new stylistic dimension, a form of decorative softness of the school of Matisse.” The initial primitivism is now supplemented by a dimension of “rational structuralism” which together mould the structure of the painting, ordering it “in a meticulous organization of engineered blobs of colour”, with the progressive introduction of a new and softer colouring, “principally blue and soft pink imbuing the entire painting with a relaxed atmosphere.” (Gideon Ofrat, Litvinovsky, Karta, Tel Aviv, 1998. p. 18). Compared with “Arabs playing Backgammon” (Phoenix Collection, 1920s), this work stands out with its partiality for a rich colouring that contrasts the green and blue of the figures with the pink of the background, and gentle dynamism. This dynamism, in which one can distinguish the form of the porter to the left, is echoed in the seated figures. These components, part of the “Matissian” influence noted by researcher Gideon Ofrat, complement the new local style that Pinchas Litvinovsky created in the twenties, a style which remains unique to this artist. In this rare work, this new style can be seen in all its beauty and splendor. O. M.
31 PINCHAS LITVINOVSKY 1894-1985 (Israeli)
Figures in Jerusalem, 1925 watercolor on paper 31.2 x 35.2 cm. (12 ⅛ x 13 ¾ in.) signed lower right in initials $9,000-14,000
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Eliyahu Sigad (Sigard) was born in Latvia in 1901. He studied architecture and art in Riga, but in 1925, at the age of 24, he left for Palestine. Shortly after arrival in the country, he began to display his paintings, initially alongside Shmuel Ovadyahu and in 1926 at the five-artist exhibit at David’s Citadel in Jerusalem. That same year he also exhibited in the “modern artists’” show at the timber home of the Ohel theatre in Tel Aviv, in time becoming one of the “Little Tel Aviv” painters. As teacher at a number of Tel Aviv schools (TelNordau, Achad Ha’am) he instructed numerous artists in the secrets of visual art, based upon a broad cultural outlook. He also made his contribution to the city as a set designer for the Hebrew theatre. In 1929, we find Sigad at the Oriental Fair exhibition, but that same year he followed the prevalent trend by heading for Paris for further study. Initially he attended the Academie Colarossi, going on to the Grand Chaumiere. In 1932 he returned to Palestine; emerging as a pivotal figure in modernist circles, he was granted a solo exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum (1932). In 1946 he gained the Dizengoff prize. He continued to paint and exhibit into the sixties, holding a number of solo shows. Sigad was an artist with a social conscience, his paintings turning upon the human scene. In the words of David Giladi, Sigad “loved the country unreservedly and dedicated his brush to its landscapes. But ultimately, those landscapes served merely as settings, because most important of all was the Who and What of man and human society moving and congregating and growing against that background.” (David Giladi, Tracks in Art, Yavneh, Tel Aviv, 1989, p. 162) Sigad’s social consciousness towards an emergent Israeli society is manifest, whether we consider a later work like “Children’s Play” dating from 1965 - recently displayed at an exhibition at the Petach Tikva museum - where his profound human understanding as mentor and schoolteacher is evident, or in the painting on sale here, dating from the onset of his work in this country, where we see the houses of Tel Aviv in its early days, and the heads of three figures huddled together where “you sense the excitement filling their world and existence” (Giladi, there.). Sigad displayed impressive skill in picking out the features and characters of the three men who have just walked out of one of the city’s cafes, their faces flushed with wine. From the time lapse of over eighty years, we savour the atmosphere of ‘Little Tel Aviv’ where, against a backdrop of single-storey, earth-hued houses, workers in peaked caps toiled to “build the land” but also pursued their revelries into the night. In the twenties, Sigad’s modernist style blended Cubism with a powerfully colourful palette that highlighted red and brown in contrast with the light blue of the sky and the attire of the man to the rear, greatly revitalizing the depiction. A similar effect was achieved by the intriguing combination of sharp forms (the square outlines of the houses in the background and the triangles, notably in the light blue shirt of the man in the rear) and the more abstract shapes in the sky and the men’s hair. Behind this portrayal there lies a profound stylistic knowledge that links up with the artist’s characteristic social consciousness. While the influence of the Cubist style is also evident in one form or another in the works of Menahem Shemi or Yisrael Paldi below, enlisting that style for a portrayal of social life is less common. O. M.
1. Tagger-Portrait of Eilahu Newman, 1925 2. Shemi-Self Portrait, 1923 3. Paldi-Fishermen, 1928 1
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4. Lubin-Self Portrait, 1924
32 ELIAHU SIGARD (SIGAD) 1901-1975 (Israeli)
Three figures in urban landscape, 1927 oil on board 42.5 x 43.5 cm. (16 ½ x 17 in.) signed in English and Hebrew and dated lower right $12,000-18,000
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Rubin- Nehama Gur, 1926-detail
This is one of the many portrayals of friends and acquaintances that Rubin created in the twenties. Almost all of these paintings, including many selfportraits, were simultanously landscapes. Rubin elected to introduce these figures integrated into the surroundings that inspired and affirmed their identity and their association with the land. This holds true for the familiar portraits of poet U.Z.Grinberg and artist Sionah Tagger and that of Yehuda Goor, father of Nehama, displayed here. The wish to blend in with their surroundings was the powerful desire and common craving of a broad circle of artists, writers and poets who congregated in Tel Aviv in those early days; acknowledging that urge among his friends, Rubin found ways of expressing it, instilling into it his own aspirations. Many of these works include a view from the window, a familiar genre that reached its zenith in the French Post-Impressionism of Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard. Rubin resorted to this genre not merely as a formal principle of supporting the organization of the composition, but also as a way of framing and focusing the patch of landscape within the artist’s field of vision. Occasionally he integrated into the composition decorative “still life” elements such as a plant pot on the window sill, a flower vase or plate of fruit, as expressions of an intimacy illustrating the dialectic connection between sheltered private expanse and the open public domain. At that period, Rubin was very intimate with the family of dictionary writer Yehuda Goor; he was friendly with his son Assaf and wife Dvora, daughters Hadassa and especially Nehama. Nehama is seen here seated on a balcony against the seashore, with the curtain, the sail boat, the small house and vegetation in the background seeming to frame her figure. The white colour of her blouse is echoed in the white of the curtain, the boat’s sail and the white flower floating in the vase on the table at her side. Her arms are folded, her regard contemplative, but above all we are impressed by the informal presence of a youthful Eretz Yisrael woman on her home ground. Carmela Rubin
33 REUVEN RUBIN 1893-1974 (Israeli)
Portrait of Nehama Gur,1926 Rubin-Jaffa, 1926
oil on canvas 61 x 50 cm. (23 ¾ x 19 ½ in.) signed and dated lower right Carmela Rubin has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work Exhibitions-Dreamland-Reuven Rubin and his Encounter with the Land of Israel in his paintings of the 1920s and 1930s, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, 2006, no. 48. Literature-Carmela Rubin, Dreamland-Reuven Rubin and his Encounter with the Land of Israel, exhibition catalogue, p. 118 (photo) $200,000-250,000
Self Portrait by the window 1923.
34 LUDWIG BLUM 1891-1975 (Israeli)
Bouquet of flowers, 1931 oil on canvas 73 x 60.5 cm. (28 ½ x 23 ⅝ in.) signed and dated lower right $7,000-10,000
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Ludwig Blum was born in 1891, in Moravia. He exhibited his artistic talents while still a child and at 18 enrolled at the Vienna art academy. The outbreak of World War I found him a soldier on the Sarajevo front, where he received no fewer than seven medals for acts of bravery. At war’s end, he completed his art studies at the Prague School of Apprentices under Franz Tilla a master of the Academic school that was putting up a fierce resistance to the modernist assault. Following a year spent touring the breadth of Europe, he succumbed to the Zionist “bug”, and decided to emigrate to Palestine in 1923. After a brief sojourn in Tel Aviv, he made his home in Jerusalem where he was to spend the rest of his life, being committed to the city’s vistas and scents. Landscapes of the city and its environs were a recurring motif of his work, painted from various points of view and at changing seasons. His persistence and his desire to document the city’s pulse gained him the award of “Honorary citizen of Jerusalem” in 1967. Blum’s art can be divided into four periods: first, his studies in Vienna and Prague; second, his early paintings in Palestine from the twenties to the forties, which highlight his precise academic approach; his work during the 1948 War of Independence, after the 1946 death of his son while serving with the Palmach – a period when, he worked as a “drafted artist”; and his later works from the fifties onwards, which display greater freedom in use of colour and line, in landscapes more romantic in spirit. Right from the outset, Blum was fascinated by the warm colours, the powerful light and the endless distances. Reaching Jerusalem, Blum settled initially in the Old City. Of this early period, from which few paintings remain, we are offering for sale two landscapes. The first, particularly rare, is a sweeping landscape of the “Old City seen from the Damascus Gate”. The second is a more detailed vista of the “Pool of Hizkiyahu” The picture painted from the Damascus Gate is an earlier work, produced shortly after Blum’s arrival in the country in March 1923. The portrayal displays most clearly Blum’s instantaneous infatuation with the city’s vistas. The magic of the city landscape as a pink sunset waves its magic wand over Temple Mount, the houses of the Jewish Quarter, including the Chorbah and Tiferet Yisrael synagogues, up to the skyline - all these illustrate his love for this primal landscape. In this painting, Blum exhibits his superb flair for constructing landscape paintings. A comparison with a photograph taken at the time from an angle similar to that from which the work was painted (photograph below) shows that the artist constructed the landscape in a meticulous manner: at the centre of the work is a closed rectangular expanse of buildings, around which he arranged the various areas. Standing out are the Temple Mount enclave to the deep left and the Jewish Quarter to the right. Blum’s sources for this work were academic paintings dating from the nineteenth century, such as those of the German painter Friedrich Heinrich Werner with their warm colours and unusual angles of observation of the city of Jerusalem (see painting below). Departing from tradition, Blum enlarged and invigorated the landscape by expanding the palette of colours to include warm yellows and browns in contrast with the soft pink of the sunset. The trees and bushes featuring in the work contribute to the city’s unique atmosphere, simultaneously marking out the different areas, Temple Mount being designated by a lone cypress. In his dedicated creativity, Blum projects the image of the “European painter” in his initial experience of the local landscape. In the words of the painter Haim Gliksberg in “On the Land”: “A landscape painter infatuated with nature and with nature living within him, also finds his own landscape in the Land of Israel…The core is the spirit of the landscape, the internality of nature, and whosoever paints nature faithfully, the local landscape will anyhow become sensible in him. I, for example, set about painting here with exactly the same sensation as anywhere …even if here in this country the artist is obliged to paint in the early morning or at evening.” (Gideon Ofrat, On the Land, pp. 487 – 488).
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35 LUDWIG BLUM 1891-1975 (Israeli)
Jerusalem, 1923 oil on canvas 60 x 116.8 cm. (23 ⅜ x 45 ½ in.) signed and dated lower left $45,000-55,000
Werner-Temple Mount, 1864
Photo of Temple Mount, 1929
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“The Pool of Hizkiyahu”, dates from 1927, four years after Blum’s arrival in Palestine. Over the intervening time, the artist had modified his palette, rendering his style more academic. The details of the buildings are more exact, as also their imposing reflection in the water of the pool. The warm palette that characterized his earlier work was now reinforced by a bright green, a clean yellow and red. The colours imbue the work with vitality, picking out those buildings the artist wished to render prominent, such as the tower with its red roof, or the building that seems to hang over the pool. In contrast with the earlier View from Damascus Gate, Blum here narrowed his regard to a confined section of the city. This enabled him to focus upon the different appearance of the buildings at the extremity of the Christian Quarter, behind which we can discern the minarets of the Moslem Quarter. Replacing the Hebron hills as the setting of the city, the Judean hills with their colourful red and green echo the hues of the pool and buildings. By their portrayal, Blum summons the viewer to direct his gaze to the depth of the work, and raise his eyes from the pool at the forefront, to the intermediate level and the landscape in the background. The landscape of the city of Acre, dating from 1925, features an unusual motif in Blum’s works of the twenties. As far as we know, Blum only painted Acre one more time, in the fifties, precisely from the same spot south of the city, with the Haifa bay opening up before and the Carmel mountains in the background. The work was created with a reason: it was commissioned by a Dutch institution as part of a series of twelve Israeli landscapes. Its colours recall earlier works (such as “View of the Old City from the Damascus Gate”), standing out in its warm colours contrasting with the pink-and-purple in the background. But we already experience his initial experimentation with richer colouring – principally in the red roof of the building to the right – that would characterize his subsequent portrayals. Photo of Acre 1929. Of particular interest is the artist’s effort to deal with depiction of the sea which is so prominent here. Blum contrives to portray with great precision the shallow sea near the shore, and the reflection of the city walls, without forgoing the plasticity of the waves. At the centre of the work, he depicts a rocky reef located at the entrance to the Acre harbour, where it constitutes a natural barrier, offering him an opportunity to add variety in the form of two sail boats.
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Ludwig Blum is renowned for the landscapes that record the vistas of this country, but less so for his portraits. Those of us familiar with his charming portraits know that Blum was a meticulous and faithful portraitist with a flair for “capturing the moment” and summing up the character of his subject. The painting now offered for sale is the “Portrait of Dani Ben Yaakov”. Dani, was one of the mythological fighters of the War of Independence. The portrait, does not offer a heroic description of the fighter; instead it attempts to depict the features of the spirited young man. Captured as a “snapshot” between actions, the portrayal is imbued with vitality by the hat slanted askew, and the swift sketch of the military uniform, but that cannot disguise the fact that the young man had shaved carefully and put on a tie as required for “a formal portrait”. Nevertheless, Blum contrived, by means of rapid brushstrokes, to inject into the work the casual note required to make us believe that this is a momentary portrait. That sensation makes us focus our attention on his blue eyes and the fine features, with the characteristic moustache standing out. Alongside this portrayal of a soldier is “Portrait of a young boy” dating from 1948. The boy is depicted seated against the setting of a large garden with ornamental pool and a small statue gushing water. Like the soldier in the previous work, the subject is dressed in his finest, but unlike that close-up, the boy is depicted at a distance. Our gaze is drawn to the yellow tie stuffed into his shirt, and a chair of the same colour. The boy is seated in relaxed pose, leaning back in the chair. His body inclined slightly to the left permits our gaze to wander beyond him to focus upon the bizarre statue at the back. The garden with its statue, and the child in his finery, invest the painting with a European touch. Seen from the perspective of time, that touch strikes us as strange in view of the tempestuous times when the portrait was painted. But that feeling may only affect a present-day viewer, while yet having escaped the attention of the artist in this very tranquil and meticulously planned portrait in painstakingly realistic style.
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O. M.
LUDWIG BLUM 1891-1975 (Israeli)
Portrait of Dani Ben-Yakov, 1948 oil on canvas 35.5 x 27.5 cm. (13 ⅞ x 10 ¾ in.) signed, dated and inscribed in Hebrew “Jerusalem 1948” lower right. $8,000-9,500
39 LUDWIG BLUM 1891-1975 (Israeli)
Portrait of a seated child in a garden, 1946 oil on canvas 100 x 80 cm. (39 x 31 ¼ in.) signed and dated in Hebrew lower right, signed in English lower left $12,000-18,000
Yosl Bergner was born in Vienna in 1920 and grew up in Warsaw where his poet father, Melech Ravitch relocated to play an active role in the renaissance of Yiddish culture in Poland. In 1937, Bergner fled the horrors of the looming war, heading for Australia where he studied painting at the art academy of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. In his early works, Bergner portrayed his neighbors in the povertystricken slums of Melbourne, Australian aborigines and the Jews of Poland whose tragic plight he documented regardless of the physical distance. When their appalling fate emerged at war’s end, Bergner sought a measure of consolation in a “documentation” of the culture they had bequeathed. From Bergner’s viewpoint, the past called for attention, and the contact with Yiddish literature on his canvasses seemed to be forging a connection with the lost landscapes of his childhood. The motifs of many of his post-war paintings and illustrations were folk-tales and the stories of Shalom Aleichem and I.L. Peretz; the iconography of these works comprises figures from the Jewish world. This painting shows nine of the shtetl elders seated around a table immersed in discussion. Bergner was referring here to the tale about the people of Chelm and their search for a solution to their dire economic plight. According to the story, they conferred for seven days and seven nights, coming up with a plan to plant, on the roof of the synagogue, a series of ladders on top of one another until they reached up to heaven. Whereupon the synagogue beadle would climb up the top ladder and grab the moon, which would then be preserved in the synagogue so that Jews from all over the world would come to Chelm at the beginning of the month for the blessing of the new moon. But the beadle was no ordinary beadle, he was a shlemiel (nincompoop) and it was finally decided to place a barrel full of water beside the synagogue; when the moon hovering in the heavens was reflected in the water, a sack would be flung over the barrel. The energetic elders waited till midnight, and when the moon, unaware of the snare that had been laid for it, was reflected in the water barrel, they hastened to cover the barrel and bear it into the synagogue, convinced they had solved all their problems… This tale, derived from the collection of tales of Chelm, provided Bergner with a way of bringing the observer closer to the realm of the shtetl, now forever lost to this world. On top of which, he profoundly shared this self-deprecating Jewish humour.
Carmela Rubin
1. Warsaw Demonstration, 1940 2. Bontzh before the Heavenly Judges,1948 1
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3. Berl and the bass 1940’s
48 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Chelm Stories Seven days and seven nights(recto) portrait of a lady (verso) Double sided painting oil on masonite 51.3 x 61 cm. (20 x 23 他 in.) signed lower left Provenance: Given by the artist to the parents of present owner, in 1943 in Australia. Label (on back of the painting)- Property of Mr. Perl, c/o H.Bergner, 387 Toorak Rd. Burwood, Melbourne, Aus. $26,000-29,000
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49 v YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Still life, 1958 oil on canvas 61 x 46.5 cm. (23 ¾ x 18 ⅛ in.) signed and dated upper right in Hebrew $6,000-8,000
50 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Utensils, 1965. oil on canvas 50 x 65 cm. (19 ½ x 25 ⅜ in.) signed and dated lower right $9,500-10,500
51 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Lamp with green lampshade, 1964 oil on canvas 61 x 50 cm. (23 ž x 19 ½ in.) signed and dated upper left, signed and titled on the reverse
Exhibition - Yosl Bergner- Paintings: 1955-1975, Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, 1975, no. 29. Literature- Yosl Bergner- Paintings: 1955-1975, exhibition catalogue, Illustration no. 29 (in color) $6,000-8,000
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52 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Young Girl watercolor 28 x 26 cm. (10 ⅞ x 10 ⅛ in.) signed lower right $1,000-1,500
53 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Flower Bouquet oil on canvas 40 x 40 cm. (15 ⅝ x 15 ⅝ in.) signed lower left, signed and titled on the reverse $3,500-4,200
54 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Still life oil on canvas 30 x 40 cm. (11 ¾ x 15 ⅝ in.) signed lower right, signed and titled on the reverse $3,500-4,200
55 YOSL BERGNER B. 1920 (Israeli)
Flowers in vase, 1980 oil on canvas 46 x 38 cm. (18 x 14 â…ž in.) signed lower left, signed and inscribed on the reverse $3,000-5,000
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