Frank Meisler, Rare Vintage Israeli Judaica Rabbi Praying Mechanical Sculpture Frank Meisler

Details

Description

Rare Vintage unusual piece.
In this bronze or metal sculpture by Frank Meisler, the artist recreates a Rabbi at prayer. … Read more Rare Vintage unusual piece.
In this bronze or metal sculpture by Frank Meisler, the artist recreates a Rabbi at prayer. The figure seems cartoon-like with exaggerated facial features. the head is kinetic and bobs back and forth. you can tilt it back or leave it down.

FRANK MEISLER
Gdansk, Poland - Israel, b. 1929
Frank Meisler (born 1929) is an architect and sculptor. He was born in Germany, grew up in England, before moving to Israel in 1960.

Meisler was born into a Jewish family in Danzig (then in Germany, now Gdańsk in Poland). He was evacuated from Germany by the Kindertransport in August 1939, travelling with 14 other Jewish children via Berlin to the Netherlands and then to Liverpool Street station in London. His parents were arrested three days after his departure, held in the Warsaw Ghetto and later murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. He was raised by a grandmother, who lived in London. He attended school in Harrow, and then did national service in the Royal Air Force. He studied architecture at the University of Manchester, and was involved in the construction of the Heathrow Airport.
Meisler moved to Israel in 1960, where he has a workshop in the Old City of Jaffa. He makes small Judaica sculptures, and also large public works with Hebrew and Jewish motifs.
His public works include a memorial to Ben Gurion in Israel, a statue "Eternal Kiev" in Kiev, and a series of Kindertransport memorials: "Kindertransport - the arrival" erected at Liverpool Street station in London in 2006, "Trains to life, trains to death" erected at Friedrichstraße station in Berlin in 2008, "The departure" erected at Gdańsk Główny station in 2009, and "Crossing to life" erected at the Hook of Holland in 2011. Each includes bronze statues of a group of children, with luggage. Known for his whimsical folk art, Judaic sculptures he is a long time denizen of Jaffa along with Ilana Goor.
Meisler also designed the interior of the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue in Moscow, and sculptures for Russia's National War Memorial. A memorial of the death march of Jewish prisoners (and subsequent murders at Palmnicken) was erected in Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) in 2011.
His autobiography On the Vistula Facing East, was published in 1996.
The Czech Academy of Art awarded him the Franz Kafka gold medal in 1999.
He was made an honorary academician by both the Russian Academy of Arts and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts in 2002. Architect, designer and sculptor, Meisler was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany's Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit (Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse) in 2012, in recognition of his services to German-Jewish and German-Israeli relations. See less