Auction 73 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
Moshe Bernstein (1920-2006) – The Mourner – Gouache on Paper
Opening: $250
Unsold
Moshe Bernstein (1920-2006), The Mourner, 1954.
Gouache on Paper. Signed and dated. Titled on verso.
Moshe Bernstein, painter, illustrator and Yiddish poet, was born in Bereza Kartuska, Poland. He studied at the Vilna Academy of Art. During World War II, he escaped to the USSR. In 1947 Bernstein attempted to illegaly immigrate to Palestine with Aliya Bet, and after the illegal immigrant ship on which he sailed was captured by the British, he was sent to the Cyprus detention camps. There he met artist Naftali Bezem and studied in his workshop. A print he created in the workshop was featured in the album "In the Cyprus Exile". Bernstein's art focused mainly on documenting and commemorating the Eastern European shtetl.
Being, by his own definition, "an expressive artist with a surrealistic-symbolic tendency", he failed to achieve recognition from artistic circles in Israel, which for many years favored abstraction. However, his pictures of the shtetl, commemorating a vanished world, were eventually recognized for their artistic value and importance.
59X44.5 cm, in a 76X61.5 cm frame. Good condition. Minor blemishes to margins of leaf. Minor blemishes to frame.
Provenance: The collection of Simcha Holtzberg, "Father of the Wounded Soldiers".
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Simcha Holtzberg (1924-1994), also known as the "Father of the Wounded Soldiers", loreate of the 1976 Israel Prize, was born in Warsaw, Poland, and experienced firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto and the camps of Budzyń and Bergen-Belzen. After the liberation, he immigrated to Palestine, married and started a family, making a living trading in Judaica and art. Since the Six-Day War, he devoted much of his time and efforts to helping wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and bereaved families. He visited wounded soldiers in hospitals, supporting them both spiritually and financially and accompanying them in their recovery as a real father would.
From Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s eulogy in memory of Simcha Holtzberg: "This man, snatched from the fire of the Holocaust, so deeply concerned for the State of Israel, a haven for Holocaust refugees, did everything in his power so that the catastrophe would be remembered. The terrors of the Holocaust followed him like a shadow, fueling his love of the State, the wounded, the disabled, the bereaved families […] in the name of the Israel Defense Forces and in the name of the State of Israel, I salute you, Simcha".
Gouache on Paper. Signed and dated. Titled on verso.
Moshe Bernstein, painter, illustrator and Yiddish poet, was born in Bereza Kartuska, Poland. He studied at the Vilna Academy of Art. During World War II, he escaped to the USSR. In 1947 Bernstein attempted to illegaly immigrate to Palestine with Aliya Bet, and after the illegal immigrant ship on which he sailed was captured by the British, he was sent to the Cyprus detention camps. There he met artist Naftali Bezem and studied in his workshop. A print he created in the workshop was featured in the album "In the Cyprus Exile". Bernstein's art focused mainly on documenting and commemorating the Eastern European shtetl.
Being, by his own definition, "an expressive artist with a surrealistic-symbolic tendency", he failed to achieve recognition from artistic circles in Israel, which for many years favored abstraction. However, his pictures of the shtetl, commemorating a vanished world, were eventually recognized for their artistic value and importance.
59X44.5 cm, in a 76X61.5 cm frame. Good condition. Minor blemishes to margins of leaf. Minor blemishes to frame.
Provenance: The collection of Simcha Holtzberg, "Father of the Wounded Soldiers".
---------------------
Simcha Holtzberg (1924-1994), also known as the "Father of the Wounded Soldiers", loreate of the 1976 Israel Prize, was born in Warsaw, Poland, and experienced firsthand the horrors of the Holocaust in the Warsaw Ghetto and the camps of Budzyń and Bergen-Belzen. After the liberation, he immigrated to Palestine, married and started a family, making a living trading in Judaica and art. Since the Six-Day War, he devoted much of his time and efforts to helping wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and bereaved families. He visited wounded soldiers in hospitals, supporting them both spiritually and financially and accompanying them in their recovery as a real father would.
From Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s eulogy in memory of Simcha Holtzberg: "This man, snatched from the fire of the Holocaust, so deeply concerned for the State of Israel, a haven for Holocaust refugees, did everything in his power so that the catastrophe would be remembered. The terrors of the Holocaust followed him like a shadow, fueling his love of the State, the wounded, the disabled, the bereaved families […] in the name of the Israel Defense Forces and in the name of the State of Israel, I salute you, Simcha".
Israeli and International Art
Israeli and International Art