David Leviathan (; born 6 August 1950) is an Israeli painter, sculptor, and poet.

Biography

David Leviathan was born and grew up in Kibbutz

Givat Brenner Givat Brenner (), is a kibbutz in the Central District of Israel. Located around south of Rehovot, it falls under the jurisdiction of Brenner Regional Council. Founded in 1928, it is named after writer Yosef Haim Brenner, who was killed in t ...

in Israel. Right after completing his military service, in the year 1972, he attended the Avni Institute of Fine Arts. During his studies there, he became an assistant of his teacher – master, the artist Yehezkel Streichman, and later on he was teaching there himself. In the year 1977 he gave up painting and for the next two years was occupied with trying to compare the monthly cycle in women to cycles in nature, by creating different kinds of 3-dimensional objects. Towards the end of 1979, he moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, and while being touched by the book ''The Fall'', written by

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...

, he composed oil paintings trying to deal with Camus thoughts, and thus titled his first one-man show in Amsterdam, "The Fall". During the following years, while using the

Four Elements The classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Angola, Tibet, India, a ...

(Air, Water, Fire & Earth) as a major theme for his abstracts and Human Heads (some of them painted on huge canvases, like 350x300 cm` and similar), he used to spend two weeks every year (1981–1989) on a

Greek island Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. The largest Greek island by ...

(each year on a different one), letting a donkey carry his equipment while travelling, to achieve a greater perspective for developing his work, relating those Vibrant Elements and Heads. In the year 1992, Leviathan received Dutch citizenship, and the next two years he was travelling between

and Paris, living and working in them both. He moved back (temporarily?) to Israel to create, and the white color started taking a major part in his work. A major motif in his work is questioning death within the cyclicality of Life and Death, in which he uses a lot of images of old women, devoting special attention to their facial expressions, and in many cases befogging the images, trying to comprehend as deep as possible spiritual feeling, to create a certain type of atmosphere, and, in some cases it is the tension point between coming to fruition and withering.Leviathan, by prof. A.J. Fry, Germany, September 1991

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*1978 – Sara Levi Gallery,

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

*1979 – "The Third Floor Gallery",

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

*1979 – "New gallery", Tel Aviv *1980 – Galerie "Artes",

*1986 – Galerie "De Looier", Amsterdam *1989 – Sara Levi gallery, Tel Aviv *1991 – Galerie Witteveen, Amsterdam *1991 – Smith Andersen Gallery,

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

*1991 – "De Gele Rijder" Kunst centrum,

Arnhem Arnhem ( ; ; Central Dutch dialects, Ernems: ''Èrnem'') is a Cities of the Netherlands, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands, near the German border. It is the capita ...

*1992 – "The Work Shop", Paris *1992 – Museum "De Librije",

Zwolle Zwolle () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the Capital city, capital of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Overijssel ...

, Netherlands *1995 – Horace Richter gallery, Jaffa *1999 –

Performing Art Center *1999 – Givaataim Theatre (Tel Aviv) *2000 – Horace Richter gallery, Jaffa *2003 – "Artists Residence House", Herzlia, Israel *2006 –

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

cultural department, (Germany) *2010 – "Artists residence House",

Hadera Hadera (, ) is a city located in the Haifa District of Israel, in the northern Sharon plain, Sharon region, approximately 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the major cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. The city is located along 7 km (5 mi) of ...

, Israel

Group shows

*1977 – The

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Theatre gallery *1977, 1978 –

Tel Aviv Museum The Tel Aviv Museum of Art ( ''Muzeon Tel Aviv Leomanut'') is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art both from Israel and around the world. History The Tel Aviv ...

, – winners of the AICF *1977 –

Haifa Museum The Haifa Museum of Art (, ), established in 1951, is located in a historic building built in the 1930s in Wadi Nisnas, downtown Haifa. Ranking as Israel's third largest art museum, the museum focuses on Israeli and international contemporary a ...

*1992 – "Le Genie De La Bastille", Paris *1993 – Le Grand Palais, Paris, Biannual "group 109" *1993 – "Art International",

and

Tilburg Tilburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. With a population of 22 ...

*2004 – "Salon Des Artistes Indepandants", L`espace D`auteuil, Paris *2004 – "Salon International, M.C.A, Cannes, France *2004 – "Alternative gallery",

*2006 – Wilfried Museum, Hazorea,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

*2013 – Salon "Business Art", Paris

Scholarships and grants

*1975–1978 – Material scholarship from AICF *1979 – Scholarship, Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture *1987–1988 – material scholarship, Netherlands Ministry of Education and culture *1989 – Werkbeurs (grant),

municipality *1989 – Presentation beurs, "Stichting Fonds Voor Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving En Bouwkunst,

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

*1991 – Werkbeurs,

municipality, the Cultural department *1992–1993 – Werkbeurs, "Stichting Fonds Voor Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving En Bouwkunst",

*1993 – Presentatie beurs, "Prins Bernard Fonds", Amsterdam *1993–1994 – Werkbeurs, "Stichting Fonds Voor Beeldende kunsten, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst",

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leviathan, David 1950 births Living people Israeli Jews Israeli painters Artists from Amsterdam