Mordechai Ardon , 1896-1992
Untitled

Untitled
Artist's name: Mordechai Ardon , 1896-1992
Item name: Untitled
Technique: Lithograph
Measurements: 51X42 cm
Signed: Signed and numbered 99/100.
Estimate: $100 - 150

About The Artist:
Painter, born 1896, Tochow, Poland. Emigrated to Germany, 1919; immigrated to Israel, 1933. Lived in Paris and Jerusalem. Participated in Venice Biennale, 1968. Died in Jerusalem, 1992. Beginning in the 1950s Mordechai Ardon adopted a complex system of images in his paintings, taken from the Jewish Mystical tradition (Kabbalah) created in Eretz Israel, from the Bible, from his own personal world, and from a tangible reality. "Gates of Light", for example, expressed "the inner mystery and timelessness of the landscape." His work seeks to impart a cosmic dimension to the present, linking it to antiquity and mystery, in contrast to the sentimentalism in Jewish art. "Bird near a yellow wall" (1950) demonstrates his symbolistic involvement with the Holocaust, a subject to which he was one of the few Israeli artists to devote a phase of his work. As a teacher and director of the "New Bezalel", Ardon conveyed his sense of social involvement, his tendency towards Jewish mysticism and local mythology, and the combination of personal national symbols with reality-always stressing masterful technique. Pupils such as Avigdor Arikha, Naftali Bezem, Shraga Weil and Shmuel Boneh absorbed these influences and integrated them into their later work. In contrast to Zaritsky, the father of the Universalist approach, Ardon was seen as the father of the Regional approach.
1920-25 Bauhaus School, Weimar, Germany, with Itten, Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger
1926 Studied with Max Doerner
1954 Unesco Prize
1963 Israel Prize for Painting
1974 Doctor of Honor, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1988 Boris Schatz Prize
1992 Isracard Prize, Tel Aviv Museum