Moshe Castel Eternal City

Moshe Elazar Castel was born in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine, in 1909, to Rabbi Yehuda Castel and his wife Rachel. The family was descended from Spanish Jews from Castile who immigrated to the Holy Land after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Castel attended his father’s school until the age of 13. He went on to study at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where he was encouraged by his teacher to study in Paris, furthering his art education at the Académie Julian and École du Louvre in Paris. He was greatly influenced by European masters Rembrandt, Velázquez, Delacroix and Courbet, after spending his days copying their works hanging in the Louvre. Castel returned to Palestine at the onset of WWII. The subject of Castel’s early paintings were scenes of Sephardic Jews in the Holy Land. In 1947, Castel helped to found the New Horizons (Ofakim Hadashim) group, together with Yosef Zaritsky, Yehezkel Streichman, Marcel Janco and others. During the 1950s, his artwork changed style reflecting his inspiration from ancient relief paintings depicting predecessors of the Jewish people. These paintings were surrounded by ancient ruins of basalt stone blocks, which later on became the foundation for his unique artistic technique. In 1955, a solo exhibition of his works was mounted at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His murals hang in the Knesset, Binyanei Hauma Convention Center, Rockefeller Center in New York and the official residence of the President of Israel in Jerusalem. In 1959, he purchased a studio in Montparnasse, where he worked for several months a year. Castel used actual ground basalt, mixed with sand and glue, to then form into different shapes, which he then engraved. The engravings, evocative of stone writing tablets, were derived from numerous ancient symbols of Hebrew culture. Moshe Castel produced two major commissions for the Israeli government, consisting of large reliefs in his signature style. A large collection of Mr. Castel’s artwork can be viewed at the Moshe Castel Museum of Art outside of Jerusalem.

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

Explore a vast range of abstract prints on 1stDibs to find a piece to enhance your existing collection or transform a space.

Unlike figurative paintings and other figurative art, which focuses on realism and representational perspectives, abstract art concentrates on visual interpretation. An artist may use a single color or simple geometric forms to create a world of depth. Printmaking has a rich history of abstraction. Through materials like stone, metal, wood and wax, an image can be transferred from one surface to another.

During the 19th century, iconic artists, including Edvard Munch, Paul Cézanne, Georgiana Houghton and others, began exploring works based on shapes and colors. This was a departure from the academic conventions of European painting and would influence the rise of 20th-century abstraction and its pioneers, like Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.

Some leaders of European abstraction, including Franz Kline, were influenced by the gestural shapes of East Asian calligraphy. Calligraphy interprets poetry, songs, symbols or other means of storytelling into art, from works on paper in Japan to elements of Islamic architecture.

Bold, daring and expressive, abstract art is constantly evolving and dazzling viewers. And entire genres have blossomed from it, such as Color Field painting and Minimalism.

The collection of abstract art prints on 1stDibs includes etchings, lithographs, screen-prints and other works, and you can find prints by artists such as Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and more.