Shmuel Ra'ayoni

1905, Lithuania (then The Russian Empire) - 1995, Ein Hod Artists' Colony, Israel

Still Life with Bottle and Lemon, 1960s

Original Hand-signed Oil Painting -

the 1960s

Artist Name: Shmuel Ra'ayoni

Title: Still life with bottle and lemon

Signature Description: Hand-signed Hebrew upper left

Technique: Oil on cardboard

Image Size: 15 x 24 cm / 5.91" x 9.45" inch

Frame: Unframed

Condition: Very good condition.

Artist's Biography:

Shmuel Ra'ayoni, Israeli painter and architect ,was born in Lithuania in 1905 (then the Russian Empire).
After high school studies in Kovno, he made Aliyah to the Land of Israel and studied in “Bezalel.” In 1931 he moved to Haifa, where he studied painting in several high schools and architecture at the Technion. In 1934 he married Ella Ra’ayoni, who was his student. In 1947 he traveled to Paris, France. In 1952 he joined the “New Horizons” group. In 1953 he joined the “Ein Hod” Artists’ Village. In the first half of the 1950s the major influence on Ra’ayoni’s painting was European figurative expressionism. Little by little his painting style moved to lyrical abstraction.
In 1964 he moved permanently to Ein Hod and was cnsidered the veteran of Ein Hod Artists' Village.
Died 1995 in Eid Hod Artists’ Colony, Israel.

Education

1923-1927 Bezalel School of Arts & Design, Jerusalem
1945-1936 Studied architecture in a correspondance course and as a free listener at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
1945 degree in architecture and engineering, British Institute (A.M.I.E.T), London
1947-1955 Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris
1947-1955 Académie Julian, Paris

Teaching
Haifa Art Schools
1955-1951 Seminar for Teachers and Pre-school Teachers

Awards and Prizes
1948 Herman Struck Award, Haifa Municipality
1958 Malach Prize, Ein Hod.

Shmuel Ra'ayoni (May 4, 1905 – December 22, 1995) was an Israeli painter, member of New Horizons, teacher and educator and founding member of Ein-Hod Artist Village.

Shmuel Raayoni was born as Shmuel Maslovati in 1905 to a Zionist family in Žiežmariai – a town near Kaunas, then the capital of Lithuania. Encouraged by Boris Schatz, the founder of Bezalel, Raayoni immigrated to Palestine, alone, in 1923 and enrolled in the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. During those years, Aharon Avni, Arie Aroch, Moshe Castel Yehezkel Streichman, Avigdor Stematsky, and Zeev Ben-Zvi, studied there as well.
In 1927, Raayoni completed his studies at Bezalel and moved to the town of Petach Tikva where he worked at odd jobs, including teaching of painting. Among his students at that time was the painter Shlomo Eliraz.
In 1931, he moved to Haifa, where he began teaching painting at Bialik High School and later on at a teacher's seminar.
In 1935 he married his former student, Ella Brettler, who later became a fabric collage artist. He changed his name to Ra’ayoni around that period.
In 1939, at the same time he was teaching, Raayoni started to study architecture an engineering at the British Institute for Engineering Technology. Raayoni received his degree in Architecture and Engineering in 1945. He joined the General Union of Painters and Sculptors in Palestine in 1947, and immediately thereafter traveled, for the first time, to Paris. He studied at the Académie Julian, a private art school, where many foreign artists studied, since they were not required to take French language examinations. In 1955, Raayoni returned to Paris – this time enrolling at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and subsequently he traveled to Italy.
Raayoni joined the Ofakim Hadashim group in 1952 where he became an active member. He participated in all the group's exhibitions, except the exhibition in Ein Harod Museum in July 1963. In 1953 he represented Israel at the Bienal in São Paulo, Brazil and in the Autumn Salon in Paris in 1958. Raayoni exhibited in Israel and abroad on occasion with his wife, the artist Ella Raayoni.
In 1953 Raayoni joined, as founding member, the artist village of Ein-Hod, where he lived with his family until his passing away in 1995.

Raayoni's early paintings, immediately after his graduation from Bezalel, are figurative, expressionistic and influenced by the European art of the period. Upon his return from Paris, he shows an exhibition of Paris and Haifa, his then home town, in watercolors making use of his famous bright colors and the Israeli light.The lessons that Raayoni learned from Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault began to be apparent in his paintings. In the early 60's Raayoni started painting what was later coined as “lyric abstract”. He was also experimenting with a derivative of Action Painting, a painting technique introduced by the American painter Jackson Pollock. In this technique, an image is created by body movements without rational control. In the 70's and 80's came his “white period”. Raayoni created a series of scenery painting based on the landscapes of the Negev. In many of these paintings clusters of figures appear, serving as metaphor to the emotional world he wanted to represent. In later years his paintings were based on his impressions from his visit to the city of Goslar, Germany. In his late life he focused on painting figures.

Raayoni's body of work shifts between a variety of styles and techniques. Initially, as Batia Donner mentioned in her article about Raayoni, "it seemed to chart an evolutionary process that echoes cultural phenomena and trends that occurred at the heart of the Israeli art scene. However, at a certain moment, his paintings began to flit stylistically back and forth along the time axis, as he tried to identify the precise gesture that may best fit the meaning he sought to express".

Solo Exhibitions:
1947 Shmuel Ra'Ayoni – Exhibition of paintings, Ginmysia Bialik, Haifa
1961 Shmuel Ra'Ayoni - Solo exhibition, Gallery Jehudith, Tel Aviv
1969 Exhibition of Paintings 1966 - 68, ''People Within Landscape'', Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
1983 Solo Exhibition, Painters and Sculptors Association in Israel, Haifa and the North - Marc Chagall Artists' House, Haifa
1984 Aquarell Portraits Exhibition, Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
1990 Solo Exhibition in honor of the artist's 85th birthday, Janco-Dada Museum, Ein Hod
         Human Face – Recent Works, Artists Gallery Ein Hod
2019 Shmuel Ra’ayoni: Israeli Painter, City Gallery Kfar Saba.

Group Exhibitions:
1952 Ofakim Hadashim (New Horizons), Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv
          Painting and Sculpture in Israel, An Exhibition arranged to the Museum's 20th Anniversary, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1953 The Israeli Exhibition, São Paulo Art Biennial, San Paolo, Brazil
1954 / 1955 / 1956 / 1957 / 1960 / 1962 / 1965 / 1967 General Exhibition, Art in Israel, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1953 / 1955  / 1956 / 1957 / 1959 Ofakim Hadashim (New Horizons), Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1958 Ten Years [of] Israeli Painting, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
         Autumn Salon, Paris France
1961 Modern Art in Israel 1961, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion

1963 Ein Hod Artisrs Village – 10th Year Anniversary Exhibition, Artists Gallery Ein Hod
1964 Ein Hod Group Exhibition, Rivi Gallery, Tel Aviv
1965 Ella & Shmuel Ra'ayoni, Woodstock Gallery, London
         Ella & Shmuel Ra'ayoni, The Jewish Community Center, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
1966 Exhibition of Israeli Art, Temple Sinai, Amherst, N.Y.
1967 Artists in Israel for the Defense, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion
         Ella & Shmuel Ra'ayoni - A Combined Show, Yad Labanim Rechovot and Beit Ha’am Beer Sheva
1968 Artists' Day: Exhibition of Paintings Jerusalem
         Batte Wage Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
1969 Art Festival, Painting & Sculpture in Israel, The Exhibition Grounds, Tel Aviv
         Painting and Sculpture Week, Painters and Sculptors Association in Israel, Haifa and the North
1975 Ella & Shmuel Ra'ayoni - A Combined Show of Paintings and Drawings, Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
1978 Paintings from Israel, Artist Association House Paderborn, Germany
1980 Ella & Shmuel Ra'ayoni, Yares Gallery Scottsdale, Arizona
1982 Bezalel 1906-1929, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1983 Traveling Exhibition, Israel
1987 Israelsche Kunstler aus Ein Hod und Tel Aviv, Kurfürstliches Palais, Trier, Germany
         13 Artists from Ein Hod, Tel Aviv Artists House
1992 Flip it up flip it down, The Janco-dada Museum in Ein-Hod (together with his wife, Ella Ra’ayoni)
2005 A Mediterranean View, Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
2007 Small Dimensions, Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
2013 Small Dimensions 2, Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem
2015 1965 Today, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
2016 Positivenegative, Artists Gallery Ein Hod
         A New Horizon for New Horizons, Mishkan Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ein Harod
2017 Alternative Facts, Artists Gallery Ein Hod
2018 Untitled, Artists Gallery Ein Hod.

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