Richard Florsheim

Cityscape Lithograph Chicago Modernist

Large gilt framed abstract modernist landscape of Jerusalem. Framed it measures 33.25 X 41.25 inches. Canvas measures 28 x 36 inches. Bold Blue sky. Avraham Binder was born in 1906 in Vilnius (or Vilna), now part of Lithuania. He began painting at an early age and completed the prescribed studies in painting at the academy of arts in his native city. Upon graduation, at the commencement exhibition of works submitted by the graduates, he was awarded a prize in recognition of his talents. Artistic talent had deep roots in the Binder family. Avraham's father and grandfather were both artistically inclined, as was his sister Zila Binder and daughter Yael. In fact, he came from a long line of master artistic bookbinders, hence the family surname. The Binder family emigrated to Palestine in 1920. There, his father established a bookbinding workshop in Tel-Aviv while Avraham pursued painting. Binder has not identified with any particular modern school nor narrow artistic doctrine. He struggles to verbally explain his personal conception. Instead, he derives inspiration from emotions, resulting in a great variety of artistic treatments. Particularly memorable are his urban landscapes with their predominance of blues and aquamarines, composed of a profusion of squares and rectangles, crowding one another and covering nearly the entire canvas. The angular shapes are interspersed with radiant dots of red, gold and yellow, like the lights of the big city. Those squares and rectangles reflect, perhaps, impressions of a childhood spent among books which were scattered about the home and workshop of his father, the bookbinder. These shapes, no doubt, had their influence upon the artist whose first youthful impressions were – books. Traces of these shapes are discernible in Binder’s work to this day, in the angularity of splashes of color which, no longer crowded together, are now well separated to create an airy spaciousness. Not only the splashes of color – the inventing space, too – creates figurative effects in the artist’s treatment. Avraham Binder is not a “cerebral” painter. Neither identified with any particular modern school, nor preaching any narrow artistic doctrine, he is an emotional artist: his inspiration, derived from the heart, leads him on to the most varied range of treatments in his artistic work. In vain might one try to persuade him to define his personal conception of painting. He is not one to indulge in verbal explanation. But his sheer artistic skill, his virtuosity with the paint brush, did impel him to experiment widely with the artistic techniques of the modern age. And his exceptional talent stood him in good stead in all this experimentation. Binders large-scale urban landscapes are not mere constructs to represent our present-day architecture with its pervasive angularity. Made up as they are of color, Binder’s unique color composition qualifies these canvases to be ranked among the foremost artistic works in Israeli painting. They are uniquely Binder, very different from what we see in the work of his contemporaries. Here and there, Binder also introduces the human element into these paintings. He lives and breathes the atmosphere of his surroundings, deeply experiencing the sea and the shore of Tel-Aviv that confront him day after day, and which he has transferred to his canvases, as metaphors in paint, throughout the life. More recently, he has created a new series of shore-and-seascapes, in tones ranging from brown to blue. ochre, violet and pale yellow – marvelous views of the sea and of figures enlivening its shore. In yet another series, featuring nearly the same range of hues, he lets us view, through his eyes, the Carmel Market in Tel-Aviv, or the city’s coffee houses with their crowds of people, heads bunched together as if in search of human closeness, with the windows looking in upon them. He has also done large paintings of Jerusalem – not the Jerusalem of gloom and holiness, but a Jerusalem in contrast to the flat topography of Tel-Aviv; it is this different topography which here provides the challenge for him as a painter. And the colors – the colors are bright, full of light, an inner illumination which seems to emanate from the artist himself, rather than from the sun beating down from above. So many great artists have built their life’s work upon watercolors. Binder’s watercolors are in no way inferior in their artistic worth to many of those, what with their spontaneity, their translucent quality, their color combinations, and the artist’s ability to say so much with an economy of brush strokes. We have here a painter who, until the end of his life, was still in his full creative powers, and who continued to add to his impressive storehouse of artistic works. Hundreds of his paintings grace the homes of collectors in Israel and throughout the world, or hang in his private collection; they include Israel landscapes and, most importantly, cityscapes; an exquisite series of wild flowers; many portrait paintings; experimental wood sculptures; murals painted on wood panels; reliefs…, etc. All these are testimony to an artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, who forever reaches out to try his hand at new challenges, strikes out in novel directions, discovers innovative techniques, and experiments in all the dimensions of the plastic arts. On the Israel Museum website they have listed an exhibition of his Artists in Israel for the Defense, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv 1967 Artists: Avraham Binder, Motke Blum, (Mordechai) Samuel Bak, Yosl Bergner, Nahum Gilboa, Jean David, Marcel Janco, Lea Nikel, Jacob Pins, Esther Peretz Arad, Dani Karavan, Reuven Rubin, Zvi Raphaely, Yossi Stern...

Oded Feingersh. painter and chemical engineer. Born in Jerusalem. Graduate of Bezalel Art Academy, studied art in Paris. Education 1960–63 Bezalel Academy of Art & Design,, Jerusalem 1979-83 Avshalom Institute, Tel-Aviv Geography of Israel 1965–68 Paris, Brussels and Madrid Feingersh's work ranges between social realism, naturalism, pop-art and surrealism. As a vagabond-artist, he draw endless influences from all around the world, his world is abundant with personal and collective mythology, classic and modern influences, from the erotic to medieval art to Hieronymus Bosch and Thomas Huffman. Selected one person exhibition: 1964 Chermernisky Art Gallery, Tel-Aviv 1966 Tournesol Galerie, Paris 1966 Montjoie Gallerie, Brussels 1967 Campo Gallerie, Antwerp 1968 Sala Amadis, Madrid 1969 Views of Fear, Engel Gallery, Jerusalem 1970 Psychic Drawings, Dugit Gallery, Tel-Aviv A secret Agent's Battles Against International Communism, Engel Gallery 1975 Tel Aviv Museum 1977 Arta Gallery, Jerusalem 1978 Ella Gallery, Jerusalem 1979 Fontana Gallery, Stockholm 1982 Art Basel Fair, Tiroche Gallery 1982 Saphir Gallery, Paris 1983 Puffing, Radius Gallery, Tel-Aviv 2002 Narcissism, Sculpture Gallery, Ramat Gan 2007 Through the Back, Danon Gallery, Tel Aviv 2002 Old & New, the Art Workshop, Yavne. 2010 Film Noir bin Color, Ramat Gan Museum of Art, Ramat Gan 2011 Dialogue, Tal gallery, Kfar Vradim Selected group exhibitions: 1964 Youngsters 64, Painters Association, Tel Aviv 1966 Lefranc Prize, Maison de Beaux-Arts, Paris 1968 The Autumn Exhibition, Tel-Aviv Museum, Rubinstein Pavillion 1969 Venus (10+ Group), Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv The Winter Exhibition,Mabat - Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Artists: Igael Tumarkin, Aharon Giladi, Moshe Givati, Tuvia Beeri, Yaacov Dorchin, Dudu Feingersh, Shimon Avny, Avigdor Stematsky. 1970 Graphic...

This piece is part of my private collection since the 1970's. It is an original color lithograph signed and numbered by the Japanese artist Shungo Sekiguchi. In 1935 Shungo Sekiguchi...

Paul Charlot ( French, 1906- 1985) was a French painter and printmaker influenced by the intense use of colors in Fauvism and the whimsical biomorphic abs...