Jakob Eisenscher (1896-1980), Houses.
Watercolor on paper. Signed.
Jakob Eisenscher was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire). He studied in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. As World War I broke in 1914 he was conscripted into the Austrian army; in 1915 he was taken captive by the Italians, spending the rest of the war in a Prisoner of War camp. Eisenscher returned to Czernowitz, then a center of Yiddish Avant-garde culture, and started experimenting in woodcuts on top of other media. Immigrating to Paris in the early 30s, he discovered Cubism, which deeply influenced him; he since defined himself an "expressionist cubist". In 1935 he immigrated to Palestine, settling in Tel-Aviv and earning a living as a photographer. Between 1953 and 1968 he taught in Bezalel. His later works are characterized by "semi-cubist, colourist painterly language" as art critic Gideon Ofrat puts it.
"Eisenscher translated the architectural elements which he observed into the architectural structures of his paintings, infusing them with colourism […] The landscape details were abstracted in favor of formal, colorful essences. Eisenscher avoided spontaneous lines and dramatic brush strokes; the poetry and music of his landscapes are conveyed primarily by the tones and formal rhythm". (Broader Horizons, 120 Years of Israeli Art, by Gideon Ofrat. The Vienna-Jerusalem Foundation for Israeli Art, 2013. p. 114).
25.5X22 cm, in a 40X33 cm frame. Fair condition. Creases. Brittle paper. Unexamined out of frame.