Mordechai AvnielIsraeli Modernist Watercolor Painting Safed Synagogue Interior Bezalel School

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Watercolor painting of Shul interior in Tzfas, Safed Israel.

MORDECHAI AVNIEL
Minsk, Belarus, b. 1900, d. 1989
Mordecai Dickstein (later … Read more Watercolor painting of Shul interior in Tzfas, Safed Israel.

MORDECHAI AVNIEL
Minsk, Belarus, b. 1900, d. 1989
Mordecai Dickstein (later Avniel) was born in 1900 in Minsk, present-day Belarus. He studied fine arts in Yekaterinburg, Russia (1913–19) and at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (1923). Avniel immigrated to Palestine in 1921 where he first worked as a pioneer in citrus plantations near Petah Tikva. In 1923, at the urging of Boris Schatz, he went to Jerusalem to further his art studies at Bezalel. He later taught painting and sculpture at the school, and served a term as director of the Small Sculpture Section of the Sculpture Department (1924–28). From 1935 on, Avniel lived in Haifa. Avniel was also a lawyer and a founding partner of the Haifa firm Avniel, Salomon & Company.
Avniel regularly showed his work in group exhibitions of the Painters and Sculptors' Association of Israel. He was awarded the Herman Struck Prize (1952), Tenth Anniversary Prize for Watercolours, Ramat Gan (1958), Histadrut Prize (1961), and First Prize Haifa Municipality (1977). He represented Israel at the 1958 Venice Biennale and the 1962 International Art Seminar at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Avniel was a member of the Artists' Colony in Safed and maintained a studio on Mount Carmel.
Mordechai Avniel is best known for his deft and singular landscape work.
His works are held in numerous museums and collections both in Israel and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA. Avniel's manipulations of light and colour share much with those of compatriot artists Shimshon Holzman and Joseph Kossonogi.



Education
1913-19 Art School of Katrinburg, Russia
1923 Bezalel School of Art, Jerusalem

Selected exhibitions:
2004: Our Landscape: Notes on Landscape Painting in Israel, University of Haifa Art Gallery, Haifa (online catalogue)
1965: Mordechai Avniel Retrospective, Haifa Municipality Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
1964: Galerie Synthèse, Paris
1962: New York University, New York
1961: Rina Gallery of Modern Art, Jerusalem
The Autumn Exhibition Rina Gallery, Jerusalem
Artists: Dedi Ben Shaul, Lea Nikel, Yossef Zaritsky,Ephraim Fima Roytenberg, Zvi Meirovich, Aharon Kahana, Avigdor Stematsky, Mordechai Levanon, Yosl Bergner, Israel Paldi, Zvi Tolkovsky, Geula Dagan.
1960: Galerie Intime, Montréal
1959: Opening Show, Gallery Moos, Toronto (with Serge Poliakoff, Marc Chagall, Hans Erni and Paul-Émile Borduas) (1959 gallery invitation).
1959: Pulitzer Art Galleries, New York
1957: Chemerinsky Gallery, Tel Aviv
1956: Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
1955: Nora Gallery, Jerusalem
1954: Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv
1954: National Museum, Washington
1953: Shore Gallery, Boston
1952: Katz Gallery, Tel Aviv
1941: Beit Pevsner, Haifa

Selected collections:
Haifa museum of Art
Tel Aviv Museum
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Boston Public Library
Brooklyn Museum
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge
Hartford Atheneum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
New York Public Library
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
Carnegie Institute of Fine Arts, Pittsburgh
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco See less