Lot 354
Arieh Allweil (1901-1967) – "The Ten Plagues" – Two Sketches for a Passover Haggadah – Israel, 1950s
"The Ten Plagues", two sketches for an illustration accompanying the Passover Haggadah, made by Arieh Allweil (1901-1967). [Israel, ca. early 1950s].
1. Sheet of paper depicting a soldier throwing a grenade against the backdrop of a battlefield, surrounded by ten preliminary sketches of miniatures representing the Ten Plagues.
Mixed media on paper. Signed.
50X62 cm. Good condition. Abrasions. Small closed and open tears. Pinholes.
2. Hollow rectangular paper sheet (complementing the abovementioned illustration), depicting ten miniatures of the Ten Plagues. Each miniature incorporates the first letter of the plague. This is the final version of the sketches described in paragraph 1.?Mixed media on paper.
50X64 cm. Good condition. Pinholes to margins. Stains and traces of tape. Printing instructions in pen on the margins.
The illustration was printed in a Passover Haggadah accompanied by an introduction and commentaries by Max Brod and Y.M. Lask and seventeen illustrations by Allweil. Tel Aviv: "Sinai", [1954].
Arieh Allweil (1901-1967), born in Boibrik (Bíbrka, Galicia), established a group of "HaShomer Hatza'ir" in his hometown and in 1920 immigrated to Palestine as a pioneer. He was one of the founders of Upper Bitaniyah, the first settlement attempt of "HaShomer HaTzair" in Palestine. In 1921, following the Bitaniyah Affair, he quit the group and returned to Europe to study art at the Vienna Art Academy. During his studies there he joined the Kunstschau group of avant-garde artists, whose members also included Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, made his first works of art, including the series of prints "Turah Aforah" inspired by his time at Upper Bitaniyah, and displayed his works in the group's exhibitions. In 1926, he returned to Palestine, where he worked as a painter and teacher, and was one of the founders of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Israel Painters and Sculptors Association, and the "HaMidrasha" art school in Tel Aviv. He also self-published his books, in the "Hillel" publishing house he had founded. In his artistic work – his paintings of the views of Palestine and his activity as a central figure in Israeli artistic circles – Arieh Allweil continued his life's work as a pioneer.
Arieh Allweil worked en plein air. During his first years in Palestine, he struggled to adjust to the local light. However, with time he developed his own unique style of landscape painting, working mostly in the soft morning light. In his autobiographical writings, he reminiscenced: "For two years I destroyed everything I painted. The Eretz-Israeli landscape denied itself to a painter from the Vienna woods [...] The blazing sun tore my pictures with dullness. It is not easy to 'conquer' this landscape […] The Eretz Israeli landscape pushed all traces of Cubism, and of Fauvism too, out of my paintings" (Arieh Allweil: Letters, Figures, Landscapes, by Galia Bar Or. Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, 2015. p. 90).
Provenance: The Uzi Agassi Collection.
