Joseph Zaritsky
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Joseph (Yossef) Zaritsky (; September 1, 1891 – November 30, 1985) was one of the early promoters of modern art in the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
both during the period of the
Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...
(the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel before the establishment of the State of Israel) and after the establishment of the State. Regarded as one of the most influential Israeli painters, Zaritsky is known for cofounding the "
Ofakim Hadashim Ofakim Hadashim (, lit. "New Horizons") is an art movement started in Tel Aviv in 1942. New Horizons The Ofakim Hadashim art movement began with a group of artists who mounted an exhibition in Tel Aviv's Habima national theater in December 194 ...
" group. In his works, he created a uniquely Israeli style of
abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a Composition (visual arts), composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. ''Abstract art'', ''non-figurative art'', ''non- ...
. For this work he was awarded the
Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...
for painting in 1959.


Biography


Russia, 1891–1923

Joseph Zaritsky was born in 1891 in
Boryspil Boryspil (, ) is a city and the administrative center of Boryspil Raion in Kyiv Oblast (region) in northern and central Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Boryspil urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The population was estimate ...
, in the Poltava Oblast (province), in the Southwestern portion of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
(today the
Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast (, ), also called Kyivshchyna (, ), is an Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, which is administered as a city with special sta ...
of
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
), to a large, traditional
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
family. His parents, Golda and Joseph Ben Ya'acov, were farmers with National-Zionist leanings. One of the main expressions of this was their devoting of two rooms in their home to the study of Hebrew and reading. When he was 7 or 8 Zaritsky was sent away from home for a long period of time (it's not known to where). From 1910 to 1914 he studied art at the Academy of Arts in the city of Kiev. Among the artists that influenced Zaritsky was the Russian Symbolist painter
Mikhail Vrubel Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel (;  – ) was a Russian painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. A prolific and innovative master in various media such as painting, drawing, decorative sculpture, and theatrical art, Vrubel is generally character ...
. In 1915, during
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Zaritsky was conscripted into the Russian Army, where he served until 1917. Zaritsky, in an interview, talked about his being sent to the front as an officer during the First World War, but then, when he got there, being sent back because the peace agreement between Russia and Germany had been signed. In 1918 he married Sarah (Sonia), a graduate of the Faculty of Dentistry in Kiev, and the daughter of Rabbi Israel Dov Zabin. A year later their daughter Etia was born. Because of the
pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...
of 1919, the family escaped to Kalarash,
Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...
, leaving behind all his works and art up to that point. In Kalarash he stayed in his father-in-law's home, where he painted small-scale watercolors, of which only five have survived: three portraits of his wife and two rural landscapes. These small works are done in small dark colored dots, and they reflect the influence of Russian modernism. In his painting "Artist’s Wife Looking out at the Street" (1920), Zaritsky divided the painting into two: the background, in which he describes the town, and the foreground, in which his figure sits. The angle of description of the figure – from behind – emphasizes this division. In spite of the division, Zaritsky cancelled the illusion of spaciousness by using identical materials and coloring for both parts. In his landscapes of this period as well, Zaritsky divided the format into a sort of mosaic on small canvases that blur the illusion of perspective.


Jerusalem, 1923–1925

In 1923 Zaritsky immigrated to the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
alone and settled in
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 ...
; a year later his family followed. In the city Zaritsky painted a number of watercolor landscapes in light colors. Gradually his artistic works became freer. In "Jerusalem: Abyssinian Gate” (1923), a precise rendering of nature is still apparent, but in later works there is a pronounced expressionistic tendency in the composition of his works. Examples of this can be seen in “Haifa, the Technion” (1924), and in the works called "Jerusalem: Nachalat Shiva" (1924), in which Zaritsky uses an expressionistic technique for dividing the format into separate spaces. The use of lines in his work as a means of expression can be seen also in his depictions of houses in Jerusalem and Safad from this period. In 1924 Zaritsky mounted his first solo exhibition in the club "Menorah" in Jerusalem. Another exhibition was opened in the Technion in
Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...
. The journalistic criticism emphasized the lyricism in his works, and the fact that "the forms
n his paintings N, or n, is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
turn into dots of abstract color, the subject of which is an allegory of color and light, and not the plot of a story." In addition, Zaritsky and the sculptor Abraham Melnikov, were the initiators of the first of the exhibitions of Israeli artists in the
Tower of David The Tower of David (), also known as the Citadel (), is an ancient citadel and contemporary museum, located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, Old City of Jerusalem. The citadel that stands today dates to the Mamluk Sult ...
. Also, from 1927 he served as the Chairman of the Israel Painters and Sculptors Association.


Tel Aviv, 1925–1948

In the middle of the 1920s Zaritsky moved to
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 ...
and continued to paint the series of landscapes that he had started in Jerusalem. The landscapes and portraits of that he painted during these years show his effort to create an artistic language appropriate to description. In 1927 Zaritsky left his family behind and went to Paris for a stay of several months. There he was exposed to the western modernist art that was flourishing in Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century. Later Zaritsky remarked on how impressed he was by the exhibits at the
Guimet Museum The Guimet Museum (full name in ; ''MNAAG''; ) is a Parisian art museum with one of the largest collections of Asian art outside of Asia that includes items from Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Tibet, India, and Nepal, among other countries. Found ...
of
Asian Art Asian art includes a vast range of arts from various cultures, regions, and religions across the continent of Asia. East Asian art includes works from China, Japan, and Korea, while Southeast Asian art includes the arts of Brunei, Cambodia, E ...
. In 1929 Zaritsky participated in the "Egged" group's exhibition, held in an apartment on
Allenby Street Allenby Street () is a major street in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was named in honor of Field Marshal Viscount Allenby. Allenby Street stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest to HaAliya Street in the southeast. It was first paved with ...
in Tel Aviv, in which artists such as Sionah Tagger,
Arieh Lubin Arieh Lubin (; 1897–1980) was an Israeli artist. Biography Arieh (Leo) Lubin began to study art in Chicago in 1915, but left to join the Jewish Brigade in World War I. After the war, he studied in Europe and returned to Israel in 1922. Art ...
, and Pinchas Litvinovsky, among others, also participated. The works of this group show the influence of late French post-modernism (primarily of the "
School of Paris The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century. The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
"), which was popular among the artists of the
Land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...
. In Zaritsky's works this was manifested in his tendency to paint broad surfaces of color and to use broad, free brushstrokes. In "Portrait of the Artist's Wife," an oil painting done in 1929, Zaritsky used the image of a bouquet of flowers in front of the main image. Broad, free brushstrokes blur the boundary between the foreground and the background of the painting. His exhibition at the Bezalel National Museum in 1930 established him as a modernist and reflected a turn toward European art.
Uri Zvi Greenberg Uri Zvi Greenberg (; September 22, 1896 – May 8, 1981; also spelled Uri Zvi Grinberg) was an Israeli poet, journalist and politician who wrote in Yiddish and Hebrew. Widely regarded among the greatest poets in the country's history, he was a ...
said, after a visit to the exhibition, that Zaritsky's work encompasses a different kind of painting which does not reflect "the literality of illustrative art toward the literary subject," the exotic imagery of the Land of Israel, "which drags Arabs from the shuk and their donkeys, by the ears, to the olive press." The atmosphere in the painting Greenberg described as "the stillness of colors" and "the holding of one's breath." “Even the red curtain," Greenberg writes, "which in his paintings reminds us of the abstraction of Kandinsky, even this red is restrained, and its judgment as red becomes just a matter of a wintry sunset." Between 1932 and 1933, Zaritsky opened an art "studia" adjoining the basement of the home where he lived on 18 Mapu Street. Among the artists who came to his studio were Yehiel Krize,
Arie Aroch Arie Aroch (; born 1908, in Russia – October 15, 1974, in Israel) was an Israeli painter and diplomat born in Kharkiv, now Ukraine and then part of the Russian Empire. Aroch's work was a mixture of Pop Art and abstract art, along with element ...
, etc. Nonetheless, the studio did not last long, and Zaritsky was destined to earn his living in the future, for the most part, from the real estate he owned. A subject that appears in his work during these years is the motif of flowers, such as in the series of watercolors called "Flowers on the Windowsill," which he painted in Tel Aviv between 1937 and 1944, and in his works that were created after a visit to Beit Daniel (Daniel House) in
Zichron Yaakov Zikhron Ya'akov () often shortened to just Zikhron, is a town in northern Israel, south of the city of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, near t ...
, from 1939 and during the 1940s. While in the early works of the series flowers serve as an element for focusing the viewer's observation on reality, in the later works the flowers become more of a form used to express feeling. In 1935 Zaritsky moved to a new house that he built on the southeast corner of Ben Yehuda and Mapu Streets. In the large series of works he produced in the 1930s and 1940s, which depicted views of the city from his rooftop, Zaritsky turned his gaze away from the view of the beach which occupied his contemporaries, like
Nahum Gutman Nachum Gutman (as he himself signed; alternate romanisation: Nahum Gutman; ; October 5, 1898 – November 28, 1980) was a Moldovan-born Israeli painter, sculptor, and author. Biography Nachum Gutman was born in Teleneşti, Bessarabia Gove ...
,
Reuven Rubin Reuven Rubin (, ; November 13, 1893 – October 13, 1974) was a Romanian-born Israeli painter and Israel's first ambassador to Romania. Biography Reuven Zelicovici (later Reuven Rubin) was born in Galaţi to a poor Romanian Jewish Hasidic f ...
, etc., to views of the new, modern city spread out to his north and east. In his early works Zaritsky divided his works into areas that created the feeling of spaciousness. In some of the paintings the image of the painter working on views of the landscape even appears. His later works serve as a means of blurring and breaking up these areas. This blurring allows the blending of the landscape with what the painting is representing. Yona Fischer states that in Zaritsky's rooftop paintings there is an attempt at combining and unifying the light and the dark in his landscapes.
Mordechai Omer Mordechai Omer (; April 1941 - 10 June 2011) was an Israeli art historian and museum administrator who served as Director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Born in Haifa, he was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BA Art History, 1961), C ...
also described Zaritsky's use of light in his paintings and suggests that in these paintings the light is not perceived as a tonal problem. In fact, Omer claims, Zaritsky left the objects in the paintings unnuanced. 2 In 1941 he mounted a solo exhibition in the
Habima The Habima Theatre ( ''Te'atron HaBima'', lit. "The Stage Theatre") is the national theatre of Israel and one of the first Hebrew language theatres. It is located in Habima Square in the center of Tel Aviv. History Habima was founded as an ...
building in honor of his 50th birthday. In 1942 Zaritsky won the
Dizengoff Prize The Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture is awarded annually by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality since 1937. The prize is named after Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv. According to the Tel Aviv municipality, the purpose of the pri ...
for Painting.


New Horizons, 1948–1963


The Founding of "New Horizons"

The motive behind the founding of an alternative to the general art association came into being in 1948, with an invitation to mount an exhibition of Israeli artists at the Italian pavilion of the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
. Zaritsky, who was chairman of the association at the time, decided on his own to create a list of artists who would participate because he was afraid that, left to the general membership, the list would include mediocre artists. This created a scandal at the association"s general meeting, which took place at the home of
Chaim Gliksberg Chaim Gliksberg Chaim Gliksberg ''Treasured in the Heart'', Am Oved, 1975 Tel Aviv (; 1904–1970) was an Israeli painter who lived and worked in Tel Aviv. Early life and studies Chaim Gliksberg was born in Pinsk, then in the Russian Empire, to ...
. At the meeting it was decided to suspend Zaritsky from the group. As a reaction to the condemnation, several artists, among them
Moshe Castel Moshe Castel (; 1909 – December 12, 1991) was an Israelis, Israeli painter. Biography Moshe Elazar Castel born in Jerusalem, History of Palestine#Ottoman period, Ottoman Palestine, in 1909, to Rabbi Yehuda Castel and his wife Rachel. The ...
, Yehezkel Streichman, and Yohanan Simon announced their immediate resignation from the association and their invitation to Zaritsky to form an independent association. Around the original core, 15 artists gathered and boycotted the general exhibition of Israeli artists, and instead held the dedication of the new Artist's House in Tel Aviv. On July 2, 1948, the dissidents published their manifesto in the newspaper ''
Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...
'', stating that the association must emphasize achievements in Jewish painting and not sink into mediocrity. On November 9, 1948, the new group mounted an exhibition of 18 member artists in the
Tel Aviv Museum of Art 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 ...
, under the name "
New Horizons ''New Horizons'' is an Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary space probe launched as a part of NASA's New Frontiers program. Engineered by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institut ...
." While artists such as Yohanan Simon, Moshe Castel, and Marcel Janco dealt with Zionist and Jewish symbolism, Zaritsky chose for the exhibition an abstract still life influenced by the cubist painter
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with ...
. In the exhibition catalog Zaritsky emphasized the role of art in building the young nation in modernist terms: “We demand an art that exists in close proximity to the people and we are willing to explain to the public the paths and forms of the new art in order to inculcate into it these new values of truth, so that it will grasp them and march forward with us. In this way we will be able to develop the art of truth in our young country." While the art in the exhibition did not display aesthetic uniformity or a joint painting style, the exhibition was perceived as an attempt to put forward a change in the nature of local art and drew thousands who came to view the "sensationalist" modern art. From the moment it was formed, “New Horizons” was perceived as a movement which aspired to have the strength of the establishment behind it. An example of this can be seen in the reactions to the general exhibition of the Israel Painters and Sculptors Association held in November 1952, in commemoration of 20 years since the found of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, claiming that the group “conquered” the main exhibition hall.


“Otsma”

In 1957 the government of Israel decided to put on a large national display in honor of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Within the framework of the preparations for the "Exhibition of the Decade," which opened on June 5, 1978, in
Binyanei Hauma The International Convention Center (, ''Merkaz HaKongresim HaBeinLeumi''), commonly known as Binyanei HaUma (, lit. ''Buildings of the nation''), is a concert hall and convention center in Giv'at Ram in Jerusalem. History Binyanei Ha'Uma was fi ...
in Jerusalem, the government commissioned several works of monumental proportions from the members of "New Horizons." It was one of the first times that the abstract works of the members of this group were displayed in a non-museum environment. Among the outstanding works were a large steel sculpture by
Yechiel Shemi Yechiel Shemi (; 1922-2003) was an Israeli sculptor. His environmental sculptures are displayed in open spaces around the country. Biography Yechiel Stizberg (later Shemi), was born to Moshe and Esther Stizberg. When he was two months old t ...
, "Sculpture of the Decade" by
Itzhak Danziger Yitzhak Danziger (; 26 June 1916 – 11 July 1977) was an Israeli sculptor. He was one of the pioneer sculptors of the Canaanite Movement, and later joined the " Ofakim Hadashim" (New Horizons) group. Early life Danziger was born in Be ...
, a frieze by
Yaakov Wechsler Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
, etc. Another notable work was Zaritsky's painting "Otsma" (Power), which had been commissioned by
Avraham Yaski Avraham Yasky (; April 14, 1927 – March 28, 2014) was an Israeli architect. Biography Yasky was born in Chişinău, Romania (now Moldova) on 14 April 1927. He immigrated to the Mandatory Palestine with his family in 1935. Yasky studied at the ...
, a designer in the "Department of Economic Achievements." This oil painting was based on a number of motifs that had been appearing throughout his works as a secondary thread since his "Yechiam" period. On the eve of the opening of the exhibition,
David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
made a tour of the exhibition, perusing the pavilions and displays there, including the Zaritsky's painting. As a result of Ben-Gurion's remark, which according to one version was – "So, this is modern art. Well, we can manage with modern art and we can manage without it" – Zaritsky's painting was moved from its central place in the Economics Division of the exhibition to another place in the exhibition. As a result of this decision a protest was raised by some of the journalists covering the exhibition, as well as by some of the public, against the intervention of the government in matters of art. It turned into one of the biggest scandals between the artist and the government that ever occurred in the history of visual arts in Israel. Yona Fischer wrote in ''
LaMerhav ''LaMerhav'' () was a Hebrew language daily newspaper published in Israel between 1954 and 1971.

Later years

In 1968 Zaritsky was the first recipient of the
Sandberg Prize The Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art refers to a prize for art and design awarded at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, with a particular focus on Israeli art. The prize was inaugurated in 1968 with funds from an anonymous New York City, New York–based ...
of Israeli Art From the
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
, the money for which was donated by an American philanthropist. Among the committee members choosing the recipient were Sandberg and Yona Fischer. This prize was awarded to him for a large "painting" he produced in 1964, based on one of the works of Johannes Vermeer. In the many interviews he granted in honor of winning the prize, Zaritsky emphasized his worldview with regard to the independence of the meaning of a painting. "The viewer must not see more in the painting than what is there," Zaritsky explained. "He must not allow his imagination to run wild with regard to what he is looking at. What he sees is what there is. The painting is not a dream." 8 From 1968 to 1970 Zaritsky worked on a figurative portrait of art collector Ayala Zacks-Abramov. For this unusual work, he drew several sketches and a number of preliminary drawings on canvas. The full portrait, carried out in shades of green, shows Zacks-Abramov in the corner of the canvas, with her hands on her knees. While her hands undergo abstraction, the image's face retains a clear, realistic character. A large part of the composition is taken up by a curtain which becomes the dominant form in the background. The tonality of this painting has much in common with other works he painted between 1964 and 1974. In his "Green Touches" series, as well as in the paintings "Tel Aviv Windows" and "Red Stain," the growing distance in the composition and construction of his paintings from a description of nature as it is, toward a conversation with the abstract, is clearly evident. In the 1980s Zaritsky would take up residence every summer in the studio he had received on Kibbutz Tzuba. At Tzuba he would paint watercolors, among them abstract nature paintings, from direct contemplation of nature. In the summer of 1983, Zaritsky painted a number of paintings in the studio in which he returned to the motif of the window, which he had used in the past. In addition, in the 1980s Zaritsky created a number of paintings, some of them monumental in size, constructed along the lines of painters like
Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, an ...
,
Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
, etc. In 1980 one of Zaritsky's watercolors from 1924 was sold at a public auction in the Gordon Gallery for $79,000. However, in addition to economic success, in his last years Zaritsky received a number of public tributes as well. In 1979 he was interviewed on television for the first time on
Gideon Ofrat Gideon Ofrat (Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoke ...
's show "Taste and Smell." In 1981 the Israeli Postal Authority issued a stamp depicting Zaritsky's “Jerusalem: The View from Jaffa Gate” (1927). In 1981 Marc Scheps, Director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, named Zaritsky recipient of the Yakir Ha'ir (Esteemed of the city) award; on May 26, 1982, Zaritsky received the award from
Shlomo Lahat Shlomo "Chich" Lahat (; November 9, 1927 – October 1, 2014) was a major general in the Israel Defense Forces and former Head of the Manpower Directorate. He served as the eighth mayor of Tel Aviv in 1974–1993, for four consecutive terms. Afte ...
, the Mayor of Tel Aviv. In January 1982 there was a festive screening of the film "Portrait of an Artist: Joseph Zaritsky” (1981; 32 min.), directed by Jachin Hirsch, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and the Israel Film Service. In 1985 the Tel Aviv Museum Art hosted a retrospective exhibition of Zaritsky's art that included 340 of his works. On March 26, 1985, Zaritsky's wife Sarah died. Zaritsky died a few months later, on November 30, in Assouta Medical Center, aged 96. After a ceremony at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, he was buried at Kibbutz Tzuba.


Zaritsky's Works

During the second decade of the twentieth century, Zaritsky stood out because of his modern approach, in contrast to the " Tower of David Period" paintings with their Land of Israel style. His works differed from these paintings in that they lacked local symbols, such as local people, camels, or donkeys. These works were still influenced by Russian modernism. However his later work shows a gradual disengagement from the traditions of this painting style. Zaritsky developed a painting style known as "lyrical abstraction." In this kind of abstraction the images are created by the way the brush is pulled along the surface of the painting in order to produce compositions and paint stains that are for the most part square, whose disengagement from the realistic source and adaptation to the spirit of the painting, its impression as he calls it, increased with the passing of the years.
Ran Shechori RAN may refer to: * Radio access network, a part of a mobile telecommunication system * Rainforest Action Network * Ran (gene) (RAs-related Nuclear protein), also known as GTP-binding nuclear protein Ran, a protein that in humans is encoded by the ...
claimed that "lyrical abstraction" is an original Zaritsky formulation for the French "unformal" or the American "
Action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical ...
."
Gideon Ofrat Gideon Ofrat (Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoke ...
claimed in his article "'New Horizons': About Sins" that Zaritsky's formulation of "lyric" painting created in Israeli art a tendency toward an emphasis on the surface, to a tribute to the lyrical line and stain. This tendency permeated the work of the "Want of Matter" artists, of minimalism, and of Israeli conceptual art. In addition, Efrat says that "the massive presence of new horizons prevented local development of all other sensitivities." Among others, it pushed aside Surrealism and Symbolism which had begun to appear in Israel during these years. Zaritsky's watercolor paintings – a unique interpretation of Cézanne and of the Russian symbolist painting (Vrubel) – received recognition from the moment of his aliyah in 1923. Both as an active artist and as an art critic, from the beginning he was one of the artists identified with the
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
. The conflict between the orientalist dimension and the universalist dimension can be felt in his early works. Later he came to concentrate on the latter and even to fight for it. Zaritsky's watercolors, with all the admiration they received at the time, were viewed as significant milestones only retrospectively, after the painter had become the leader of "New Horizons." Joseph Zaritsky's still lifes and portraits from the end of the 1920s and the 1930s, show the influence of French intimiste painting and sometimes of Matisse. From the middle of the 1930s to the middle of the 1940s Zaritsky concentrated on describing one urban landscape – the view of Tel Aviv roofs from the window of his studio or from the roof of his house. This activity resulted in hundreds of watercolors in which the artist grappled with the principal problems of painting: the significance of translating reality to the ingredients of a painting. The window and the frame around the canvas that appear in most of these paintings are an allegory for this. Towards the end of this period a tendency toward flattening and abstraction can be seen in this series. The work becomes an object in itself, the objects of reality surrender to the internal laws of the painting and become motifs of the composition. These works of Zaritsky's are a milestone in the history of Israeli art both because of their high quality and because they represent an important stage in Zaritsky's movement toward abstraction. They represent the influence of French art in the 1930s. They also relate to the modernist, contemporary aspect of the modern architecture of Tel Aviv, and to painting for its own sake and not to a figurative theme. The level of sophistication and the depth with which he dealt with the principles of painting are milestones in themselves. These paintings represent the enormous interest the painters of the Land of Israel had in watercolor painting (both for economic and budgetary reasons, and in order to transmit the effects of light). Artists such as Pinchas Abramovich, Yehiel Krize, Arie Aroch, and Shimshon Holzman were all pupils of Zaritsky during those years. And in addition to them, he had a great influence on many other artists.


Gallery

Image: Zaritsky, Yossef~B67_0789_1.jpg, Untitled, 1964
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
Collection
B67.0789 Image: 313_69~Yossef Zaritsky, Safed, c 1924_1.jpg, Safed, ca. 1924
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
Collection
B69.0313 Image: Zaristky, Yosef-Painting~B87_0249.jpg, Paris, 1954
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
Collection
B87.0249 Image: Zaritsky Yossef~B67_0599.jpg, Painting, 1964
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
Collection
B67.0599 Image: Zaritsky, Yossef, Painting, 1950-1~B74_0036.jpg, The Painter and the Model, 1949
Israel Museum The Israel Museum (, ''Muze'on Yisrael'', ) is an Art museum, art and archaeology museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world's leading Encyclopedic museum, encyclopa ...
Collection
B74.0036


Education

* 1914 Art Academy,
Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...


Teaching

* 1932–33 Opened studio in the cellar of his home in Rehov Mapu,
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 ...


Awards and prizes

* 1942
Dizengoff Prize The Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture is awarded annually by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality since 1937. The prize is named after Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv. According to the Tel Aviv municipality, the purpose of the pri ...
for painting * 1959
Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...
, in painting. * 1967
Sandberg Prize The Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art refers to a prize for art and design awarded at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, with a particular focus on Israeli art. The prize was inaugurated in 1968 with funds from an anonymous New York City, New York–based ...
for Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem * 1982 Yakir Tel Aviv-Jaffa


See also

*
List of Israel Prize recipients This is an incomplete list of recipients of the Israel Prize from the inception of the Prize in 1953 - 2025. List For each year, the recipients are, in most instances, listed in the order in which they appear on the official Israel Prize website ...


References


External links

* * * Search results
Joseph Zaritsky's works at the Gordon Gallery
Tel Aviv. Includes list of solo exhibitions. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zaritsky, Joseph 1891 births 1985 deaths Ukrainian Jews Jews from Mandatory Palestine Israeli Jews Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Jewish painters Israel Prize in painting recipients Sandberg Prize recipients Israeli portrait painters 20th-century Israeli painters Immigrants of the Third Aliyah