Jan Rauchwerger

born 1942, Bairam Ali, Turkmenistan

Standing Nude in a Room, 1979

Original Hand-Signed Oil Painting -

Dated 1979

Artist Name: Jan Rauchwerger

Title: Standing Nude in a Room, 1979

Signature Description: Hand-signed, titled and dated "1979" upper right

Technique: Oil on cardboard

Image Size: 63 x 43 cm / 24.8" x 16.93" inch

Frame: The painting is matted and framed

Condition: Very good condition

Artist's Biography:

Jan Rauchwerger was born in 1942 in Bairam Ali, Turkmenistan to where his family was evacuated from Kharkov, Ukraine because of the war.
In 1954-61 he studied painting at the T.H Shevchenk High School of Art adjoining the Kiev Academy of Art. He became admirer of El Greco.
Jan serves the Soviet Army for 3 years until 1964. The year later he became a student of the Russian artist, Vladimir Weisberg, which began a dialogue that continued till Mr. Weisberg’s death in 1985.
In 1973 Jan immigrated to Israel and soon became fully integrated into the local art scene. Very much a “painter’s painter”, he is inspired both by his cultural heritage – the Old Masters he studied in the great museum collections of Russia – and by the Israeli society and landscape in which he lives and creates. His passion for painting endows almost everything with the “right” to be a subject. This includes family members as well as still-life objects, landscapes, figures, models. Once in the care of Jan, they become part of a special relationship infused with intimacy and closeness. Jan had many exhibitions in museums (Haifa Museum, Rubin Museum, Ramat Gan Museum) and galleries across Israel (Bineth Gallery, Kibbutz Cabri Gallery) and abroad (Schloss Britz, Berlin, the Moscow Palette Gallery, Galerie Inge Herbert, Berlin).
he had a retrospective, Shades of Feeling Works from 1970-2003, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and a solo show at the Tel-Aviv museum.
Jan lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

His Work

Jan Rauchwerger’s work is rooted in realism, but after true observation, reveals a modern and contemporary approach to the form and sensuality of the foundations of the medium, whether oil, water, pastel or pencil. 

His main starting point has always been the traditional painting of a model in a studio, although his work is grounded in the history of art, from the Fayum mummy portraits in Egypt through the Renaissance and the Spanish Golden Age, to the artistic giants of modernism. 

Rauchwerger’s paintings allow the viewer to bridge the extremely private and intimate encounter between an artist and a model and any collective secret human encounter.

Rauchwerger concentrates on the everyday of houses and interiors, nudes, still lifes, and domestic animals. His sense of color and the sensitivity to his subject matter are the strengths of his work. At first glance, his works seem benign, accessible and simple; however, after further scrutiny they reveal a Rembrantesque depth and complexity, expressing a deeper vision. Jan has been drawing in pastel for the last 30 years.
His pastel pieces breathe a warmth and intimacy, signaling a moment both mundane and sublime.

Very much a “painter’s painter”, he is inspired both by his cultural heritage – the Old Masters he studied in the great museum collections of Russia – and by the Israeli society and landscape in which he lives and creates.
His passion for painting endows almost everything with the “right” to be a subject.
This includes family members as well as still-life objects, landscapes, figures, models. Once in the care of Rauchwerger, they become part of a special relationship infused with intimacy and closeness.
Jan had many exhibitions in museums (Haifa Museum, Rubin Museum, Ramat Gan Museum) and galleries across Israel and abroad.
He had a retrospective, Shades of Feeling Works from 1970-2003, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and a solo show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Jan Rauchwerger lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Studies

1965-73 Student and disciple of Russian artist Vladimir Weisberg
1964-68 Studies in the Graphic Design Department of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute
1954-61 Studies in the Painting Department of the T. H. Shevchenko High School of Art, adjoining the Kiev Academy of Art

Teaching

From 1973 Avni Institute, Tel Aviv
Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Jerusalem.

Awards and Prizes

1984 The Israel Discount Bank Prize for an Israeli Artist, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1986 Oscar Hendler Prize, Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot
1998 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
2007 Ruth and Baruch Rapaport Prize for an established artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv.

Solo Exhibitions

2020 Jan Rauchwerger The Big Grove, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art
2016 Lost Form, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
2015 Parthenon in My Life, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
2013 The Ball of My Life, Gottesman Etching Center, Kabri
2013 Intersection of Har Tsiyon & Chachmey Israel, Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery
2012 Jan Rauchwerger, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
2011 Pastel on Paper, Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
2009 New Paintings 2007 – 2009, Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv
2008 Jan Rauchwerger: A Portrait- recipient of the Rappaport Prize for an Established Israeli Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
2006 Child's Play, Alon Segev Gallery, Tel Aviv
2004 Russia,From the Early Sixties. Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Shades of Feeling- Jan Rauchwerger: Works from 1979 to 2003, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
         Shades of Feeling- Jan Rauchwerger: Works from 1979 to 2003, the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
2002-03 Jan Rauchwerger, Recent Works, 2000-2002, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
2002 Jan Rauchwerger and Avner Katz, Back to Back, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Jan Rauchwerger: Winter Journey, Goren Art Gallery, Emek Yizreel College
2001 Jan Rauchwerger: 1998-2000, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
1998 Port: Jan Rauchwerger/ Michael Kovner, Haifa Museum, the National Maritime Museum, Haifa
1997-98 Recent Paintings, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
1997 Four Hours, Period, Rubin Museum (catalogue)
1996 Alisa, Talya, and Tanya from Novosibirsk, Haifa University Art Gallery, Haifa
1995 Drawings, Studio Gallery, Ra'anana
Jan Rauchwerger: Landcapes of the North, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
an Rauchwerger, Galerie Inge Herbert, Berlin
1994 Jan Rauchwerger: Painting 1983-1993, The Moscow Palette Gallery, Moscow
         Kibbutz Nachshon Gallery
1993 Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra Gallery
Mizrachi against Rauchwerger, Bineth Galley, Tel Aviv
1992 Yehudit Levin selects, Artists' Studios, Tel aviv
1991 Nude, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Schloss Britz, Berlin
1990 Jan Rauchwerger: Works on Paper, Museum of the Negev, Be'er Sheva
1989 Jan Rauchwerger: In the Family- Art as Autobiography,Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan
         Orchards, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot Gallery
1988 Galit Rauchwerger/ Jan Rauchwerger: Photographs, Meimad Visual Art Gallery
1987 Jan Rachwerger: Works 1982-1986, Ephrat Gallery, Tel Aviv (catalogue)
1986 Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Kibbutz Lohamei Hagheta'ot Gallery
         Kibbutz Cabri Gallery
         Jan Rauchwerger: Tours in Rome (1969-1986), Maimad Katan Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
1985 Jan Rauchwerger: Recent Works, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Beit Nehushtan, Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'acov
1983 Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Vorst Gallery, Amsterdam
         Cité des Arts, Paris
1982 Radius Gallery, Tel Aviv
1981 Reibenfeld House, Jaffa
1980 Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv
         Culture Center, Rehovot
1979 Delson- Richter Gallery, Jaffa
1978 Sara Levi Gallery, Tel Aviv
1976 Zvi Noam Art Gallery, Leivik House, Tel Aviv
1975 Zvi Noam Art Gallery, Leivik House, Tel Aviv

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022 Radius, ''The Refrigerator'' Studio, Tel Aviv

 2021 Anna K., Rothschild Fine Art Gallery, Tel Aviv

 2020 Salon HaCubia 2020, Hacubia, Gallery for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem

 2019 Good news! The Negev Museum of Art, Be'er Sheva
         Naked Soul: Chaïm Soutine and Israeli Art, Mishkan Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ein Harod

 2018 All in the Family: Family Legacy in Israeli Art, Senate Gallery, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva
         15 Sculptures, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

 2017 Group Exhibition, Gottesman Etching Center, Kabri

2017 Ingathering: 10th Anniversary of the Rappaport Prize for a Young/Established Israeli Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2016 A Russian Tale, T el Aviv Museum of Art

2015 Group Exhibition from the Gallery Collection, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

2014 Summer 2014, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

2014 New Works - Spring 2014 / Group Exhibition, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

2013 Metropolis. New School of Art, Kiryat Hamelacha, Tel Aviv

2013 Print Time, Works from the Jerusalem Workshop and the Gottesman Center, Open Museum, Tefen

2013 One One One, Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv

2013 Group Exhibition, Lohamei HaGeta'ot Gallery, Lohamei HaGeta'ot
Kibutz Rosh Hanikra Gallery, Rosh Hanikra

2012 The Merry Mummy, The Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan

2011 THE MUSEUM PRESENTS ITSELF: Israeli Art from the Museum Collection, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2011 Venice: memoire, Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv

2010 Animals in Isareli Artist Work, 17 Jaffa St., Jerusalem, Municipal Art Gallery, Jerusalem

2009 Meeting / Place, Cabri Gallery of Israeli Art, Kibbutz Cabri

2009 Nudes, Artists' House, Jerusalem

2009 Landscape: Representation Matrixes, Petach Tikvah Museum of Art

2008 My Own Body, Art in Israel 1968 – 1978, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2007 Ori Reisman, Seminar, Self-Portrait, Cabri Gallery of Israeli Art, Kibbutz Cabri

2007 Group Exhibition - Open Garden, ''Independence Garden'' Open to All, Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv

2007 Prints by Israeli Artists, Ashdod Art Museum

          On Paper - Prints by Israeli Artists, Ashdod Art Museum

2007 Portfolios, The Korin Maman Ashdod Museum

2007 Books and Letters, Engel Gallery, Tel Aviv

2006 Group Sale and Exhibition, University of Haifa, The Art Gallery

2006 Portfolios From The Gottesman Center, Kibbutz Cabri, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

2006 Galit and Jan, Engel Gallery, Tel Aviv

2006 Etchings from the Brain, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

2006 My Parisian All-Stars - Elections 2006, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

2005 Group Exhibition, Ella Gallery, Jerusalem

2004 Still Landscape - New – Old, Haifa Museums

2003 Self Portrait, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv

2002 Group Exhibition, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

2002 Focus on Painting, Haifa Museum of Art

2002 Four in an Etching Y.Shemi,Rauchwerger, Nikel, Ozeri, Cabri Gallery of Contemporary Art

2002 Back to Back Avner Katz, Jan Rauhwerger, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

2001 Love at First Sight: The Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

1999 24 Paintings in Small Format - Group exhibition, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

1999 Etchings - Kabri Workshop Celebrates 6 Years, Cabri Gallery of Contemporary Art

1999 Summer Harvest - Israeli Art from the Israel Museum Collection and Elsewhere, , Israel Museum, Jerusalem

1999 Now, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

1999 90th Anniversary of Tel Aviv - Yafo, Contemporary Cityscapes - Israeli and American Artists, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

1999 Vision of Light: A Century of Watercolor in Israel, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

1998 Jan Rauchwerger, Michael Kovner – Port, The National Maritime Museum, Haifa

1998 Israeli Art - 50 years of the State of Israel, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco

1998 Bamot - Über die Erstellung: Zerschlagung und Restaurierung von Höhenheiligtümern, Israel 1948-1998, Jewish Museum Vienna, Austria

1998 Group Exhibition, Pyramida Art Center, Haifa

1998 The Meir Dizengoff and Avraham Karavan Awards ceremony, 1998, Enav Center of Culture, Tel Aviv-Yaffo

1998 Preview, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

1997 Group Exhibition, Bat Yam Museum of Contemporary Art

1997 Group A - Philip Rantzer, Asaf Ben Zvi, Jan Rauchwerger, Bineth Gallery, Tel Aviv

1996 Portraits, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

1996 Landscapes, Mizpe Hayamim Gallery, Rosh Pina

1995 Lochamei Hagitaoth Kibbutz Art Gallery - Tenth Anniversary, Ghetto Fighters' House Art Gallery, Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot

1995 Local - Dialogue with the Environment, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach-Tikva

1995 Puddles of Light, Navon Gallery and Art Centre, Neve Ilan

1994 Portrait, Self Portrait,Still Life and Landscape, Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv

1993 Homage to the Jerusalem Print Workshop, Shaar Zion Library, Beit Ariella, Tel Aviv

1992 Homage to the Cite, Artists' House, Jerusalem

1992 Duo Exhibition: Yehudit Levin and Jan Rauchwerger, Tel Aviv Artists' Studios

1990 Homage to Stematzky, Tel Aviv Artists' Studios

1987 Group Exhibition, Beit Uri and Rami Nehushtan Museum, Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov

1986 ''Studio Closed – Miluim”, Debel Gallery, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

1986 The Line, Traveling Exhibition, Israel

1986 Eilat in Israeli Art, Beit Rubin Community Center, Eilat

1984 Transformations, The David and Yolanda Katz Faculty of the Arts, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv

1984Transformation, From Russia to Israel, 7 Israeli Artists, Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv

1984 Pear and Apple, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

1983 Group Exhibition: Transparency in Mediterranean Environment, Traveling Exhibition, Israel

1978 Saint Catherine, May 1977, Julie M. Gallery (1975-2007), Tel Aviv.

Additional Information:

My contemporary the painter Jan Rauchwerger
by Mikhail Gendelev, Jerusalem July 2004

In the Spring of 2004, several rooms of the Israel Museum, the country's main artistic platform, were used by an exhibition - a retrospective, selective, fundamental and simply tremendous exhibition of works by Jan Rauchwerger.

To say that I was overwhelmed is to say nothing.

Of course, I knew Jan, I had known him for more than a decade, I had seen his paintings, I had known for certain that Jan Rauchwerger was a brilliant artist, inventive, technically and technologically perfect, civilized, very much in demand...

That is to say, he had received enough laudatory epithets for a comfortable existence as an artist in life, for his persona - in the art world, and for his name - in critical reviews; assets for a clever modern artist to live on during his lifetime and with some to spere for his heirs.

All these words-epithets both mean something in general, direct, literal sense and, sometimes, even correspond to the object of enthusiasm in a figurative, approximate sense.

In a word, a strong master, contemporary to me, to us, to the culture of our state, to the phase in the history of art. A contemporary artist. Which means modern, but not in the sense given the word "modern" in soviet and postsoviet times, when it was assumed that only modern art is provided with the necessary avanguardist and postmodernist apparatus which distinguishes it from the "non-modern" - archaic or technologically obsolete. This interpretation has brought about a mix-up of notions, while in our understaanding the modern art is no more than the art accompanying our time, the art that coexists with our life. Thus, the expression "contemporary art" is absent from Russian usage: the word, but not the notion. There is a vital need to, so to speak, de- symbolize the concept of modern artist; otherwise there is no understanding of the phenomenon called the modern artist Jan Rauchwerger. Our modern artist.

So then, to repeat, I was shaken by Jan Rauchwerger's Jerusalem exhibition. Not by the combined and honest representation of the whole abovementioned set of characteristics and qualities of art, in this case, of a modern Israeli artist whose coloring is - "outstanding", culture - "excellent", taste, color, composition - "flawless" - but!

... but - I was struck by the sharp change in the calibre. By the switch of focus - by a new class of statement, a new level of the act. By the enlargement of the of scale of the whole corpus of his works - singly, and as a body, as a totality of this whole monographic exposure. This was not a collection as an exhibition; not an exhibition as an exhibition; but a great artist himself - as an exhibition!

Yes, it was just here, in the space of the display, at theexhibition to the overwhelming effect of the whole composition - no! Here, the polyphonic effect has been set in beforehand and predetermined from above, by the range and the quality of the talent realized in his artistic activity. Accompanied, of course, by an exceptional refinement of technical means and solutions (one cannot do without), and by the God-given inspiration of his works (again, one cannot do without that).

There follow from it two, possibly too superficial, considerations, or rather two barely motivated conclusions, and not even conclusions but suggestions, since these considerations follow the impression rather than form it.

Firstly, the very existence of Jan Rauchwerger in art, to be precise, in modern art, and to be even more precise, in contemporary art allows us, or rather makes us: either doubt whether the status-notion of an artist belonging to his time is authentic and necessary or, if this is so, whether the status and the hierarchy of modern art should not be revised under a new and different light, granted the live and tangible - here he is! - presence in art of the persona of Jan Rauchwerger¹ stature.

I shall simplify - if Jan Rauchwerger's work is not "modern art", Jan will dispense with the latter and somehow manage by himself; if, however this is modern art itself, then, with Jan's (and others' if there are such to be found) presence in it, the Art can peacefully dispense with the adjective.

And - secondly. For some reason, our state, I mean the great Israel "from sea to sea" where we swim in rivers of milk and honey, this our small and hardly first-rate state, in a sense of producing masterpieces of worldwide importance (at least for the last couple of thousand years) - for some reason this our state and this our art of this our state did not until now present to the admiring world an artist of the scale both in talent and the ultimate perfection of execution - like Jan.

And the fact that it did happen, makes my heart, quite experienced and not too inclined to admiration, to beat in a rhythm smacking of something national-patriotic, even of Zionist tympanis and tambourines. With a feeling of a certain national pride. With pride for a contemporary and a compatriot. For the very fact of existence and the miracle of existence of such a compatriot. In our great artistic country of milk and honey.

And I would be happy if they could share my enthusiasm in Russia, in Jan's biological, so to speak, native land where he was born and learned, where lay the graves of both his ancestors and of his great teacher, the Moscow artist Vladimir Weisberg.

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