Auction 168 Part 1
Israeli & International Art
Jan 20, 2018
Israel
Kikar de Shalit, Herzeliya Pituah
Terms of sale
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The auction has ended
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LOT 64:
Yosl Bergner
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Sold for: $36,000
Start price:
$
18,000
Estimated price:
$25,000 - $35,000
Auction house commission: 15%
VAT: 17% On commission only
Users from foreign countries may be exempted from tax payments, according to the relevant tax regulations
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1920 - 2017
The Tree of Knowledge, 1940s,
Oil on board, 60X50 cm.
Signed.
In his content, images and paint brush – this painting belongs to a group of paintings Yosl Bergner painted in Australia (1937-1948), - even more so to the second half of the 1940’s. While painting the poverty struck aborigines of Australia, Bergner also painted ”Jewish” paintings in Melbourne, figuratively expressionistic in the manner of the Jewish school of Paris with Jewish subjects related to the village and the holidays, the songs, folk tales, some in Yiddish.
”The past demanded attention and the contact between Yiddish literature and the canvas was like touching childhood landscapes that are now gone”. (Carmela Rubin, ”Yosl Bergner”, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2000, page 18). The accurate background to this painting is unknown, also because Yosl Bergner is now gone.
However, in the light of his familiarity with Jewish songs and tales, the boy standing beneath the tree, while little children play betwixt its branches, echoes the story told by I.L Peretz. It is as though Bergner translated the singing birds in the branches to the souls of the children.
But even more than this association, it seems as though this painting responds to a folk poem by Bialik (originally in Yiddish). It is noteworthy that this painting was painted at the end of WWII and after the massacre of Jews in Europe and especially in Poland (from which Bergner and his sister fled).
It is, therefore, that this painting laments the extermination of Jewish children and channels the happiness of a lost childhood, a perished home. The alive-dead children in the tree branches solidify the way to Bergner’s future paintings that will explore the notion of grief for a childhood cut short: these are paintings from the 1960’s and onwards, of dying children, crucified children and children escaping from windows of buildings.
(Translated and adapted from Gidon Ofrat)
| The Tree of Knowledge, 1940s, Oil on board, 60X50 cm. Signed. In his content, images and paint brush – this painting belongs to a group of paintings Yosl Bergner painted in Australia (1937-1948), - even more so to the second half of the 1940’s. While painting the poverty struck aborigines of Australia, Bergner also painted ”Jewish” paintings in Melbourne, figuratively expressionistic in the manner of the Jewish school of Paris with Jewish subjects related to the village and the holidays, the songs, folk tales, some in Yiddish. ”The past demanded attention and the contact between Yiddish literature and the canvas was like touching childhood landscapes that are now gone”. (Carmela Rubin, ”Yosl Bergner”, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2000, page 18). The accurate background to this painting is unknown, also because Yosl Bergner is now gone. However, in the light of his familiarity with Jewish songs and tales, the boy standing beneath the tree, while little children play betwixt its branches, echoes the story told by I.L Peretz. It is as though Bergner translated the singing birds in the branches to the souls of the children. But even more than this association, it seems as though this painting responds to a folk poem by Bialik (originally in Yiddish). It is noteworthy that this painting was painted at the end of WWII and after the massacre of Jews in Europe and especially in Poland (from which Bergner and his sister fled). It is, therefore, that this painting laments the extermination of Jewish children and channels the happiness of a lost childhood, a perished home. The alive-dead children in the tree branches solidify the way to Bergner’s future paintings that will explore the notion of grief for a childhood cut short: these are paintings from the 1960’s and onwards, of dying children, crucified children and children escaping from windows of buildings. (Translated and adapted from Gidon Ofrat) |
