Bidspirit auction | Bernard Reder

Bernard Reder - Marker on paper 70X65 signed and framed Bernard Rader (1897–1963) was a Jewish artist who mainly worked in sculpture, engraving and etching. Rader was born in the town of Czernowitz (in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in Ukraine), which was at that time a Jewish-Chassidic center. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and in 1935 had his first solo exhibition in the city. Two years later he moved to Paris, where he worked and exhibited his sculptures with the artist Aristide Maillol. With the Nazi occupation, Rader and his wife fled Paris for Spain, from where they moved to Cuba and two years later, in 1943, they moved to live in New York. A few years later, Rader's works were already exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1954, Rader traveled to Italy to sculpt in Rome and Florence, and after his return to the United States, a retrospective solo exhibition was held for him at the Whitney Museum. This was the first time in the museum's history that a large solo exhibition was spread over three floors. In 1967, Haim Gamzo, director of the Tel Aviv Museum, curated an exhibition of Rader's sculptures in the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, as part of a series of modern sculpture exhibitions, which also featured sculptures by the French artist Auguste Rodin and the British artist Henry Moore. In 1987, a retrospective exhibition was held at the Herzliya Museum to mark the 90th anniversary of Bernard Rader's birth. Rader died in 1963 in New York. After his death, his wife immigrated to Israel, and his estate was entrusted to the curator and collector Deborah Schocken, who donated it to the Herzliya Museum while serving as the chairwoman of the museum's association. His works are now in the collections of leading museums in Israel and around the world. Rader's works were greatly influenced by the Bible, Greek mythology and the Hasidic life in Czernowitz, and even fairy tales he heard from his mother as a child were assimilated into them. He was a creative artist with skills and a boundary-breaking imagination, whose fantastic creations later became his distinctive artistic language. At the same time, his works are endowed with an extraordinary balance of contrasts – emotions and intellect, rigor and spontaneity at the same time. Bernard Rader was a celebrated sculptor but no less a first-rate impressionist and printmaker. He worked extensively with various graphic techniques – drawings in pen, pencil and brush, as well as in charcoal, and with woodcuts, etchings and etchings. In his prints he achieved rare color qualities, and since he strongly opposed the principle of duplicating the medium, he created a monotype print, only one copy of each Print. Bernard Rader's graphic language is fast, sharp and humorous, yet, as mentioned, intelligent and meticulous. It is evident in his work that it was created from a deep observation and understanding of the hidden parts of the human soul. The visual translation of this understanding is revealed in figures from Greek mythology such as Amazons and Minotaurs presented in an allegorical way; in imaginary animals, which are sometimes a hybrid of animal and human limbs; in distorted musical instruments that accompany the fantastic creatures; in plump women and various figures, whom Rader dressed in flamboyant costumes. This selection of works, from the collection of the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, focuses on the graphic work (woodblock prints and drawings) of Bernard Rader. It was prepared as part of Vered Ilani's internship on behalf of the House of Israeli Art. Writing text and choosing images: Vered Ilani (From the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art website)