By Mordechai Avniel
Located in Surfside, FL
Watercolor painting of Old City of Jerusalem
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...
Category
20th Century Modern Donald L. Hadden Art
MaterialsPaper, Watercolor
