Mordecai Ardon
Template:Short description Template:Infobox artist Mordecai Ardon (Template:Langx; 13 July 1896 – 18 June 1992) was an Israeli painter.
Biography
Max Bronstein (later Mordecai Ardon) was born in Tuchów, Galicia (then Austria-Hungary, now Poland). He pursued architecture between 1921 and 1925 in the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Studying among other notable painters such as Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee.<ref name=":0" /> For about a year, following his studies, he worked with Max Doerner at the Academy of Decorative Arts in Munich.<ref name=":0" /> In 1933 he immigrated to Mandate Palestine, settling in Jerusalem.<ref name=tate-bio>Template:Cite web</ref> He was granted British Mandatory Palestinian citizenship in 1936 and changed his name to Mordecai Ardon.<ref name=ind-obit>Template:Cite news</ref>
After settling in Jerusalem, he would go on to become a teacher in the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in 1935. Between 1940 and 1952, he served as its director. From 1952 to 1963 he became the artistic adviser to the Ministry of Education and Culture of Israel.<ref name=":0" />
Art career
He participated in the Venice Biennale of 1968.
Beginning in the 1950s Ardon adopted a complex system of symbolic images in his paintings, taken from the Jewish Mystical tradition (Kabbalah), from the Bible and from a tangible reality. In his painting "Gates of Light", for example, he 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. The same approach can be found in "At the Gates of Jerusalem" (1967), which shows the attempt to "convey his feelings about the cosmic significance of Israel's return to the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War".<ref>see: At the Gates of Jerusalem", Israel Museum, web site.</ref> "Bird near a yellow wall" (1950) demonstrates his simplistic involvement with the Holocaust, a subject to which he was one of the few Israeli artists to devote a phase of his work, at that time.
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, Yehuda Bacon, Naftali Bezem, Shraga Weil, Shmuel Boneh, and Bernat Klein absorbed these influences and integrated them into their later work.
Ardon was seen as the father of the regional approach in Israeli art.
One of his most famous creations are the "Isaiah’s Vision of Eternal Peace" (1980–1984), a set of large stained-glass windows displayed prominently in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem,<ref name=":0" /> incorporating visual elements from the Kabbalah.
Ardon died in Jerusalem in 1992.
In 2014 his painting "The Awakening" (1969) was sold at Sotheby's for $821,000. In 2006 his painting "The Woodpecker of Time" (1963) was sold at Christie's for $643,200.
Education
- 1920-25 Bauhaus School, Weimar, Germany, with Itten, Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger
- 1926 Studied with Max Doerner
Teaching
- 1929 Kunstschule Itten, Berlin
- 1935 Seminar, Bet Hakerem, Jerusalem
- 1935-52 Bezalel, Jerusalem
- 1940-52 Bezalel, Jerusalem, Director
- 1952-63 Ministry of Education and Culture, Jerusalem, Supervisor and Art Advisor
Awards and recognition
- 1954 Unesco Prize
- 1963, Ardon was awarded the Israel Prize, in painting.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- 1974, he received the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award.<ref name=YYawards>Template:Cite web City of Jerusalem official website</ref>
- 1974 Doctor of Honor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- 1988 Boris Schatz Prize
- 1992 Isracard Prize, Tel Aviv Museum
See also
References
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Bauhaus alumni
- Israeli stained glass artists and manufacturers
- Israel Prize in painting recipients
- Jewish Israeli painters
- Jews from Austria-Hungary
- Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe)
- Jews from Mandatory Palestine
- Polish emigrants to Mandatory Palestine
- People from Tarnów County
- 1896 births
- 1992 deaths
- 20th-century Israeli painters
- 20th-century Israeli male artists
- Immigrants of the Fifth Aliyah
- Burials at Har HaMenuchot