Ivan Schwebel Paintings

Ivan Schwebel, Israeli American (1932-2011) Oil on canvas. Painting of Winter Landscape. Signed Schwebel, 1985. Sight- L-27" x W-31.5", Frame- L-28.5" x W-32". Ivan Schwebel, Painter. Was born 1932, U.S.A. and immigrated to Israel 1963 after living in Spain, France and Greece. Studies: 1953-55 with Kimura Kyoen whilst serving with the U.S.Army in Japan; 1955-61 Institute of Fine Arts, with Philip Guston; New York University. Larry Abramson, who is very much in the mainstream of Israeli art, curated an exhibition of Schwebel’s work at the Jerusalem Print Workshop in the early 1980s; in the accompanying text, he described him as “an artist from the New York School ship-wrecked on a hill near Jerusalem.” IN SCHWEBEL’S BEST WORK, THE paint speaks for itself: the pools and explosions of rich color, achieved with pigment that he would grind and mix himself, the luminous figures emerging out of dark shadows, the quirky, dramatic compositions. Schwebel was erudite, with a passion for the bible and Jewish and Israeli history. He delved into all of it for his subject matter, bringing together characters and narratives regardless of time, and setting them in modern- day Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, the Judean hills, or New York City. He liked to play with ideas, and thoroughly mixed his visual metaphors. He showed David and Bat-Sheva next to a Nazi deportation train, and Job despairing over his relationship with the Palestinians. He based his characters on photographs of himself, friends and family, or movie stars. On his website, he describes a series of paintings about anti-Semitism in which the Holocaust is merged with the Spanish Inquisition: “Abarbanel who tried to negotiate with Ferdinand and Isabella is reincarnated in Rumkowski – the German appointed Head of the Lodz Ghetto. The bridge connecting two parts of the Ghetto is spanned over a present-day Tel Aviv cityscape. He was included in a portfolio that included Ivan Schwebel, Michael Gross, Liliane Klapisch and Moshe Kupferman, five of Israel's leading contemporary artists who were each approached in May 1977 with a request to contribute a hand-printed screenprint for a portfolio to be titled "Jerusalem". The sole term of reference was the name "Jerusalem", with no qualifications at all. The five artists then spent time working completely independently and individually on the project at the Jerusalem Print Workshop. Each screenprint was hand-signed by their respective artist and numbered from the edition of 200, hand-printed on BFK Rives paper Published by Whartman and Sacks Art Publications His “Tel Aviv” series, in contrast, is fun: “Chen Cinema” shows a couple of actors who seem to have stepped out of an old romantic movie to cuddle in the shabby street outside the cinema. In his final “Safe Place” series of paintings, he goes beyond self-conscious narrative to create his own Garden of Eden. Select Group Exhibitions: Landscape and Nature: Contemporary Israeli Prints...