Bidspirit auction | Joseph Zaritsky

Joseph Zaritsky - 1891 – 1985. Girl Lying in a Room, 1930, Watercolor on paper, 35x50 cm., Signed and dated. Literature: Joseph Zaritsky, Mordechai Omer, p. 74, no. 64 (Illustrated). Collection Of Nathan Kaplan, Chicago, USA. Nathan Kaplan was a Zionist activist from Chicago who worked to raise donations for the realization of the Zionist dream and the purchase of land in the Land of Israel, and was later appointed to fill the seat of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, on the city council. In 1927 he received an appointment on behalf of the American Zion Commonwealth, a Zionist settlement company established in the United States to purchase land in the Land of Israel for Jewish settlement during the pre-state period. The company was involved in founding settlements and towns such as Afula, Herzliya, and Kiryat Ata. Kaplan succeeded in mobilizing American politicians on behalf of the Zionist enterprise, was active in fundraising, and successfully negotiated with the British authorities as the flow of immigrants from Europe surged at the end of the First World War. During the 1920s, Kaplan became acquainted with Joseph Zaritsky and Elias Newman and began acquiring works from them. He then acted not only on the political plane but also worked to organize exhibitions of Bezalel artists in Chicago and New York, and likewise managed to acquire early and rare works by the leading artists of the 1920s and 1930s. A significant portion of these works, including those by Israel Paldi, Menachem Shemi, and others, were placed on long-term loan at the Israel Museum and were displayed in exhibitions there. In 1936, as noted, Kaplan was selected to succeed Meir Dizengoff as mayor of Tel Aviv upon the latter's death, but he declined to accept the position, believing that the mayor should be someone who had been born and raised in the Land of Israel.