DESCRIPTION : This IKOIC PIECE of OLIVE HARVEST ( Picking Olives ) was created by the FINE acclaimed Hebrew - Jewish - Israeli ARTIST , PAINTER and SCULPTOR , One of the founders of the OFAKIM CHADHIM - NEW HORIZONS art group MOSHE CASTEL in 1928 ( Please watch reference from a catalogue in pictures ) . Up for auction is an EXTREMELY RARE PIECE , Being an ORIGINAL GENUINE HAND SIGNED ( Autographed ) , LIMITED and NUMBERED colorful STONE LITHOGRAPH of unknown age , But very likely quite antique. The MARKET offers only inferior copies of unknown sources which are signed in the plate. This UNIQUE ORIGINAL PIECE is HAND SIGNED by CASTEL hands with pencil and marked "XX/C" and it was created by the printing house "MOURLOT" in Paris with the MOURLOT embossed watermark on the STONE PAPER. An ULTRA RARE piece of ART of extreme BEAUTY. Sheet size is around 30"x 22". Actual image size is around 24" x 18 ". Very good condition. Very slight foxing of margins. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images ) .Will be sent rolled in a special protective rigid sealed tube.
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SHIPPING : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 25 . Will be sent rolled in a special protective rigid sealed tube. Handling around 5-10 days after payment.
Moshe Castel (Hebrew: משה קסטל; 1909 – December 12, 1991) was an Israeli painter. Contents 1 Biography 2 Artistic career 3 Style 4 Awards and commemoration 5 See also 6 References 7 External links Biography[edit] Moshe Elazar Castel born in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine, in 1909, to Rabbi Yehuda Castel and his wife Rachel. The family was descended from Spanish Jews from Castile who immigrated to the Holy Land after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. His father was born in Hebron. He opened religious schools for Sephardi boys in the Nahalat Shiv'a and Bukharim quarters of Jerusalem. Moshe grew up in the Bukharim neighborhood, where he attended his father's school. At the age of 13, he was accepted to the Bezalel Art School, directed by Boris Schatz, where he studied from 1921 to 1925. His teacher, Shmuel Ben David, encouraged him to study art in Paris. Castel traveled to Paris in 1927, where he attended Académie Julian and Ecole du Louvre. He sat in the Louvre copying the works of Rembrandt, Velasquez, Delacroix and Courbet, intrigued by their paint-layering techniques.[1] It was here that he began to realize that "art is not symbolic, but rather material, the material is the main thing, the way the paint is placed, the way the layers are placed on the picture, this is the most essential thing." [1] In May 1927, the World Union of Hebrew Youth in Paris sponsored his first exhibit. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who was in Paris at the time, wrote an introduction for the catalogue.[1] In 1940, Castel returned to Palestine and settled in Safed.[2] In 1949, Castel married Bilhah (née Bauman), an actress. Artistic career[edit] Safed commemorative plaque In 1947, Castel helped to found the "New Horizons" (Ofakim Hadashim) group together with Yosef Zaritsky, Yehezkel Streichman, Marcel Janco and others. In 1959, he purchased a studio in Montparnasse where he worked for several months a year. In 1955, a solo exhibition of his works was mounted at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His murals hang in the Knesset, Binyanei HaUma Convention Center, Rockefeller Center in New York, and the official residence of the President of Israel in Jerusalem.[2] Style[edit] In the 1930s and 1940s, many of Castel's paintings depicted the lives of Sephardic Jews in the Holy Land, revealing the influence of Persian miniatures.[3] From the 1950s on, Castel created relief paintings inspired by the "ancient predecessors of Hebrew civilization." In 1948, he visited the ruins of an ancient synagogue in Korazin, an ancient Jewish town in the Galilee.[4] Inspired by the basalt blocks he saw there, engraved with images and ornaments, he began to use ground basalt, which he molded into shapes, as his basic material.[5] The technique utilized ground basalt rock mixed with sand and glue, infused with the rich colors that became his trademark.[3] The works were embellished with archaic forms derived from ancient script, symbolism and mythological signs from Hebrew and Sumerian culture.[5] As a member of the New Horizons group, he combined elements of abstract European art with Eastern motifs and "Canaanite art."[6] Awards and commemoration[edit] Moshe Castel Museum In 1941 and again in 1946, Castel was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for painting by the Tel Aviv Municipality.[7] He won the "Premier do Estado" prize at the São Paulo Art Biennial in Brazil.[2] The Moshe Castel Museum of Art, in a building designed by Israeli architect David Resnik overlooking the desert landscape, opened in Ma'aleh Adumim in 2010.[8] ***** Moshe Castel Moshe Elazar Castel born in Jerusalem in 1909, to his father Rabbi Yehuda Castel and his mother Rachel. Descendant of a Spanish family which came from Castiie to establish themselves in Israel in 1492. The family lived for many generations in Hebron. His father Rabbi Yehuda Castel who was born in Hebron was a scholar and outstanding Herbalist, wrote parchment and Torah scrolls. He arrived in Paris in 1927 with the help of his brother Yosef. Attended the Academie Julien and studied at the Louvre Museum. After 13 years of work in Paris, he returned to Israel in 1940, settled in Safed a medieval town of Zohar and Kaballa. He is awarded in 1946 the Dizengoff Prize on behalf of the Tel-Aviv Municipality. In 1947, he initiates and founds, together with other painters and sculptors the group "New Horizons" ("Offakim Hadashim").In 1959, he came to Paris, acquired a studio in Montparnasse where he spends a few months every year. He awarded prize "Premier do Estado" at the Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil. 1928/40 Participates in individual and group exhibitions in well known galleries and "salons" in Paris. 1955 Exhibition on the entire top floor of the Tel Aviv Museum. This was the first exhibition of abstract art in Israel Mural painting (9 x 4 m) for Hotel Accadia. Israel Mural painting for "El Al" offices at Rockefeller Center, New York. 1958 Mural glass painting "Face to the Future" (18x3.5 m) at the National Convention Center. Jerusalem. 1966 Executed a large basalt mural painting "Glory to Jerusalem" (7 x 3 m) for the Knesset (Israel Parliament) in Jerusalem. 1970/71 Executes two large basalt mural-paintings for the ceremonial hall of the Presidential Mansion in Jerusalem. "Wall of Glory to Jerusalem" and Golden Scroll". 1984 "Portrait of an artists" Moshe Castel - Israel Film Service producer. 1984/85 Years of Creativity: 1924-1984 - Jubilee Exhibition at the Knesset the House of Parliament, in Jerusalem. 1989 Opening Exhibition of Beer-Sheva Museum of Israeli Art. 1987 Yurek Gallery, Ramat Hasharon Dania Art Gallery, Haifa Works in public collections The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Tate Gallery, London Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Jewish Museum, New York The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston-Texas Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona Art Museum Berkeley University, California Brandeis University, Boston Smith College Museum, Northampton, Mass Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Wadsworth Athenaeum, Art Museum, Conn The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia Baltimore Museum of Art John Hopkins University, Baltimore American Public Insurance Company, Des Moines The Knesset House of Parliament, Jerusalem The Brooklyn Museum of Art Fairleigh Dickinson Fine Arts Museum, NJ U.S. Steel, Pittsburg Rehovot House of Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson at the Weizman Institute Temple B'nai Shalom, Rockville Center, New York Temple Emanu-El, Providence, Rhode Island San Francisco Museum of Art The Dropsie College, Philadelphia Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, New York Museum of the Vatican, Rome The presidential Mansion, Jerusalem. ****** A Castel on the hill The first time Moshe Castel visited Ma’aleh Adumim, he knew that was where he wanted his museum to be. By MATT ZALEN MARCH 5, 2010 21:09 castel museum art 311 (photo credit: Matt Zalen) Advertisement When Bilha first met artist Moshe Castel in 1948, she and her future husband didn’t exactly hit it off. Yes, they danced and yes, he asked her out on a date, but instead of meeting him at the designated spot, she stood him up. She felt that the type of date he suggested was uncouth, and it bothered her. “[In the 1940s] men and women didn’t sit together at coffee houses,” she explains. “That just wasn’t done.” Needless to say, the next time she saw him – on the street, while walking with her parents – he didn’t even acknowledge her. Read More Related Articles The rooster and the peacock Russia makes moves in Syria and Cyprus - analysis Recommended by However, the cold demeanor immediately thawed when, at a party they both attended in Safed one night, she started to sing. He was awestruck. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped and he instantly realized that there was something special about this girl. He fell in love, they married and they stayed together for the rest of his life. The conception of the Moshe Castel Museum in Ma’aleh Adumim, which after decades of planning opens to the public on March 21, shares a similar tale of spontaneity, love and devotion. While the architecture of the structure seems a perfect match for the man whose works it was built to exhibit, and while the location – perched at the edge of the city and overlooking the hills of Jerusalem – succeeds in capturing and transmitting his love of the land, the moment of inspiration that sparked the project was nothing more than an impulsive reaction. “My husband and I were going to the Dead Sea, and in the middle of the [drive], Moshe said, ‘What is this place here?’” Bilha recalls. “I told him it was Ma’aleh Adumim. He looked around – [at the time] it was all empty there – and he said, ‘Wow, I would like my museum to be here.’” Moshe Castel had never been to Ma’aleh Adumim before that day; in fact, he never lived in the city, as he died before his wife sold their house and relocated next to where the future museum would be built. But for the Jerusalem-born artist, absolute certainty in and devotion to the sources of his inspiration was not uncharacteristic. Raised in a Sephardi family that had lived near Jerusalem since fleeing from the Spanish Inquisition, Castel was practically bred to appreciate Judaism and the land of Israel. His father, a renowned musician, calligrapher and embroiderer of Torah scroll covers, helped nurture that appreciation by endowing his son with his artistic ability and his strong sense of identity. Latest articles from Jpost Top Articles Foreign Ministry: We will work to open an embassy in Bahrain soon READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE This artistic ability soon took on a life of its own and in a short time made a strong impression on the budding artist community of then-Palestine. At 13, Castel was admitted into the Bezalel School of Art and Design in Jerusalem where, after four years, his teachers recognized his potential and encouraged him to take his talent to the next level by enrolling in a prestigious art school in France. While Paris afforded Castel, who died at 82 in 1991, an opportunity to learn from the best and enjoy the company of other great contemporary artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Soutine and Chagall, as well as inspired him to produce one of his greatest works, The Woman with Fox Fur (1928), it was only after his return to Palestine with the onset of World War II that he really began to make his mark. He initially settled in Safed, where his painting continued to draw admiration from his peers. In 1948, he helped lead a split from the Israeli Artists Union to form a new movement – later termed the “New Horizon” – which aimed to revolutionize Israeli art by modernizing it. During the years that followed, Castel underwent a revolution of his own, whereby he transitioned from just painting Israeli landscapes to physically using those landscapes in the creation of his paintings. What became known as his “basalt artwork” involved collecting stones from the Galilee, crushing them, mixing them with a bonding agent and “painting” them onto the canvas as a background. PROGRESSIVELY, THE circle of those in Israel who recognized Castel as a leading art figure in the country widened, and with that recognition came more prestigious commissions. By the time of his death, his paintings could be found in the Knesset and Beit Hanassi, as well as dozens of museums and buildings in Israel and abroad. But despite the success and the accolades, one thing was missing: A museum all to himself. Not many artists in Israel have museums that are devoted solely to their work. “In Israel, there are very few museums of this kind,” says Israel Goldenshtain, chairman of the museum. “There is one in Haifa, two in Tel Aviv, and a few other minor ones elsewhere in Israel. What makes this one special, however, is that it is not built out of the house of the artist.” Indeed the museum, designed by renowned architect David Reznik, achieves that goal. Spacious and modern, it is no less impressive than some of the best museums in the country, albeit on a much smaller scale – and with the work of only one artist. Goldenshtain maintains, however, that such a limitation is not a disadvantage. “There are museums that are eclectic with art from multiple different sources, and then there are museums that are more concentrated,” he says. “This is one that is concentrated. Thankfully, Castel was interesting enough and had such diverse painting styles that there is [everything here].” Visitors to the museum will be able see Moshe Castel paintings, reliefs and drawings from every period of his life. Some are on loan from art collectors around the world who – when they heard about the new museum – decided to temporarily lend their purchases. Others were either loaned or donated by Bilha Castel from her private collection. And others have a more colorful story. “This one used to hang in Beit Hanassi,” says Bilha, pointing to The Olive Harvest (1940). “But the former president, [Moshe Katsav] did some bad things, so I went there and took it back.” Ironically, such use of Castel’s art was entirely out of character. In his lifetime, Castel never used his medium or his position as a successful artist to take a stand against a public figure, either political or otherwise. And although the museum was built in Ma’aleh Adumim – which officially falls outside the Green Line – the location is far from a political statement. “He was an artist of Israel,” says Goldenshtain. “If there is apolitical change, it doesn’t change that [fact]. He didn’t do anythingpolitical; he did something that was for the land of Israel and thatwas appropriate in the Golan, appropriate here and appropriateregardless of wherever the future border is.” **** CASTEL, MOSHE ELAZAR (1909–1991), Israeli painter. Castel was born in Jerusalem to Rabbi Yehudah Castel and descended from a Spanish family that emigrated from Castile to settle in Israel. The family lived for many generations in Hebron. His father was a scholar and a Judaica artist as well as a sofer. From 1922 Castel studied at *Bezalel in Jerusalem. In 1940 after 13 years in Paris, where he studied art and participated in exhibitions, he returned to Israel and settled in Safed. He was inspired by the ancient holy places and the mystic atmosphere created by the kabbalist rabbis of this medieval town. Castel was one of the founders of the "New Horizons" artists group (Ofakim Ḥadashim) that had a central role in the history of Israeli art. Over the years Castel created a number of mural paintings, one of them for Israel's Knesset in Jerusalem (Glory of Jerusalem, 1966) and others tailored to the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem (Wall of Glory to Jerusalem and Golden Scroll, 1970–71). Castel was recognized by his unique technique. The material he used in most of his works is ground basalt. Castel said that he chose this material after he visited Galilee, where he was inspired by the ancient synagogues constructed from basalt stone and decided to create a new material. He was attracted to the integral blending of the Jewish faith and the Israeli landscape. It was clear to him that the new material was appropriate for his art, since its themes involved Judaism and biblical visions. The content of Castel's art refers to significant events in Israel's chronicles, such as the unification of Jerusalem in 1967, using symbols taken from biblical prophecy. These symbols, such as scrolls and ancient Hebrew letters, connect national history to his personal memories of his father's profession. Some of his works describe the pilgrimage to the Temple, with the stones of the wall combined with the scrolls and letters in the background. In the 1950s and 1960s Castel's work incorporated cuneiform script as well as the Canaanite and Aramaic languages. His symbolic style was consolidated after an early figurative-naive period where he described life in Galilee and the synagogues of Safed. **** Ofakim Hadashim Hebrew pronunciation: [(ʔ)ofaˈkim χadaˈʃim], lit. "New Horizons", is an art movement started in Tel Aviv in 1942. Contents 1 New Horizons 2 Realism and Social art 3 Group members 4 Exhibitions 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading New Horizons[edit] Joseph Zaritsky Naan, The Painter and the Model, 1949 Israel Museum, Jerusalem Zvi Meirovich gouache 1961 70x50 cm Dov Feigin Growth, 1959 Ein Harod Mueeum of Art The Ofakim Hadashim art movement began with a group of artists who mounted an exhibition in Tel Aviv's Habima national theater in December 1942, under the name "The Group of Eight". The group evolved into a coherent artistic movement only after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Members of the school included Arie Aroch, Zvi Meirowitch, Avraham Naton (Natanson), Avigdor Stematsky and Yehezkel Streichman. The work of sculptor Dov Feigin also appeared in the catalog of the 1942 exhibition, though it was not displayed. In February 1947 five of the original members of the group joined Joseph Zaritsky for an exhibit called "The Group of Seven" at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.[1] Members of the group stated that "The group is based in modernism, especially French, yet seeks a unique style that expresses our own reality".[2] For these artists, this was not only a statement of philosophy, but a practical work plan. Zaritsky, who served as chairman of the League of Painters and Sculptors in the Land of Israel, opposed the league's philosophy of equality among artists. In 1948, at the time of the opening of the artists' house that was to become the League's permanent home, he was delegated to select works for the Bienniale in Venice. His selections caused such an outrage among the members that he was ousted from his position. He walked out with a group of artists, and founded an alternative movement, the "New Horizons". On 9 November 1948, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art opened the first exhibit bearing the movement's name. Among the artists showing were Pinchas Abramovich, Marcel Janco, Aharon Kahana, Yohanan Simon, Avshalom Okashi and Moshe Castel, as well as movement founders Zaritsky, Streichman and Feigin. The group sought a style that reflected the striving for Zionism and Modernism. This style was largely dictated by the leading artists of the group - Zaritsky, Stematsky Mairovich and Streichman. In practice, this style was a variant of European modernism. The style has been called "lyrical abstract", but in fact, there was little purely abstract art, but rather works rooted in the local visual landscape. This essentially figurative style was pushed toward the abstract by bold brush strokes, and a strong use of bright colors typical of the "Land of Israel" style, reflecting the strong Mediterranean light. Formats were generally rather small, and the style was similar to European abstract art before the second World War, akin to the art of Wassily Kandinsky, and unlike the abstract art prevalent in the United States at the time. For example, in his series "Yehiam" (1949–1952), Zaritsky depicts scenes from the establishment of Kibbutz Yehiam in northern Israel. The early paintings in this series (mostly watercolors) depict the natural landscapes of the region, while the later paintings are (mostly oil) abstractions of these earlier scenes. This progression, contends art critic and curator Mordecai Omer, reflects Zaritsky's belief that external visual reality is the basis of artistic originality.[3] Zvi Meirovich, a prominent members of Okakim Hadashim he painted in the abstract lyric style but unlike his colleagues Mairovich was more inclined to a German rather than a French pallette. Hs bold use of black and reds particularly in the gouaches. The big breakthrough was in oil pastels, that only he made in large format. Using a deep space photo surface rather than a flat paper was pioneering moment. Others in the group, however, deviated from this style. Marcel Janco, of international fame for his involvement in the Dada movement in Europe in the 1930s, did not adopt this approach to abstraction; rather his art uses European Cubist and Expressionist styles to create a Jewish-Zionist narrative. Moshe Castel, also, went through a transformation during the 1950s from abstraction to expressionism characteristic of the Canaanist movement. In the field of sculpture, the group introduced new media. Yechiel Shemi, Dov Feigin, and, after a sojourn in Britain, Itzhak Danziger, introduced welded steel as a new medium. This new form freed these artists from the figurative character of stone and wood carving, for a more purely abstract oeuvre. Here, too, however, there is frequent reference to the Canaanite figurativeness and symbolism. Indeed, during the 1950s, the "New Horizons" group tended more and more toward the abstract, and away from reliance on the figurative. Zaritsky led this shift, which was rooted in what he saw as a guiding ideology. Some members of the group, however, rejected this ideology, and eventually quit the movement. These included Janco, Aharon Kahana and Yehiel Simon.[4] Realism and Social art[edit] While the abstract and secular works of the New Horizons group had profound influence on the course of art in Israel, they were nonetheless considered at the time to be on the fringes of mainstream art, which was mostly figurative and often bearing explicit Jewish and Zionist messages. This explicitly nationalist trend in Israeli art was denounced by its opponents as "regionalism".[5] New Horizon critics, who maintained that art was international and universal, were opposed by the ideology of the Bezalel School at the time. Mordechai Ardon, head of Bezalel, wrote in 1954, "Every artist, like every citizen, must serve his country in heart and in soul".[6] New Horizons artists, too, despite their avowed adherence to a philosophy of universality, often expressed in their works sentiments of nationalism, Zionism, and socialism. For example, Zaritsky, one of the leading ideologues of the universalist school, produced series of paintings focusing on Israeli kibbutzim - his series "Yehiam", and a similar series on Naan (a kibbutz in central Israel), 1950–1952. Both these series include abstractions of the Israeli landscape. Zvi Meirovich one of the founders of New Horizons produced a series of large oil paintings called Mizpe Ramon focusing on the Israeli deseret. Sculptor Dov Feigin produced "Wheat Sheaves" in 1956, and Dadaist Janco painted "Soldiers", "Air raid Alarms" and "Maabarot" (jerry-built communities housing new Jewish immigrants in the 1950s). Some of the New Horizons artists belonged to the "Center for Advanced Culture" run by the Socialist-Zionist youth movement "Hashomer Hatzair".[7] This activity culminated in the founding of the artists' village Ein Harod by a group of artists headed by Janco. There, Janco hoped to found a new socialist and artistic utopia. Mordechai Ardon's work stands out from that of other New Horizons artists for dealing with the mystical and historical, rather than concentrating on the present. His canvases often depict episodes from Jewish history, from Biblical scenes to the Holocaust. In 1965 Raffi Lavie founded a group called "10+", which sought an alternative to the "lyric abstraction" of the New Horizons group. Group members[edit] Pinchas Abramovich Mordechai Arieli Arie Aroch Robert Baser Moshe Castel Itzhak Danziger Kosso Eloul Dov Feigin Marcel Janco (Iancu) Aharon Kahana Chaim Kiewe Avigdor Renzo Luisada Zvi Meirovich Avraham Naton (Natanson) Avshalom Okashi Moshe Propes Shmuel Raayoni Yechiel Shemi Avigdor Stematsky Moshe Sternschuss Yehezkel Streichman Jacob Wexler Ruth Zarfati Joseph Zaritsky