Avigdor Stematsky
Encyclopedia
Avigdor Stematsky was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

-born Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i painter. He is considered one of the pioneers of Israeli abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

.

Biography

Stematsky was born in 1908 in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

. In 1922, he immigrated to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 and attended the Bezalel School of Art
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri , who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle ....

 in Jerusalem from 1926 to 1928. He joined the Massad group in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. In 1929, he went to Paris to study at Académie de la Grande Chaumière
Académie de la Grande Chaumière
The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...

 and Académie Colarossi
Académie Colarossi
The Académie Colarossi is an art school founded by the Italian sculptor Filippo Colarossi. First located on the Île de la Cité, it moved in the 1870s to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France....

. He was one of the founders of the New Horizons
New Horizons
New Horizons is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, Hydra and S/2011 P 1. Its estimated arrival date at the Pluto-Charon system is July 14th, 2015...

 group, which sought a new visual vocabulary that would free Israeli art from its obsession with local content and form. He held his first solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was established in 1932 in a building that was the home of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art opened in 1959. The museum moved to its current location on King Saul Avenue in...

 at the age of 31.. In the constellation of Israel art, Stematsky and Yehezkiel Streichman stand out as a pair. Although each developed his own distinct, individual style, there are many points of affinity between them: a common background as students of Bezalel
Bezalel
In Exodus 31:1-6, Bezalel |transcribed]] as Betzalel and most accurately as Beẓal'el), is the chief artisan of the Tabernacle. Elsewhere in the Bible the name occurs only in the genealogical lists of the Book of Chronicles, but according to cuneiform inscriptions a variant form of the same,...

 in the 1920s, a response to the influences of the Jewish School of Paris
School of Paris
School of Paris refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I...

 in the 1930s, and of the "modern" (late cubist) art in the 1940s and fifties, when they were also leading teachers in Tel Aviv.

Artistic style

Stematsky fused the landscape and realism of his early work to create a new abstract style. From 1955, his compositions were based on geometric shapes surrounded by patches of color. In the 1960s, he became interested in rhythm, using patches of color to express feeling and to add a tangible dimension to abstract shapes. In the last decade of his life, he created a series of pure abstracts using a unique technique of thinned tempera on industrial paper.

In 2005, he was voted the 186th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Education

  • 1925–26 – Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

  • 1926–29 – Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, with Arie Aroch
    Arie Aroch
    Arie Aroch was an Israeli painter, recipient of The Israel Prize for Painting.- Biography :Arie Aroch, , painter, born 1908, Kharkov, Russia...

    , Moshe Castel
    Moshe Castel
    -Biography:Moshe Elazar Castel 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 explusion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. His father was born in Hebron. He...

     and others
  • 1929 – Yitzhak Frenkel
    Yitzhak Frenkel
    Yitzhak Frenkel was an important Israeli painter.-Biography:...

    , Tel Aviv
  • 1930–31 – Académie de la Grande Chaumière
    Académie de la Grande Chaumière
    The Académie de la Grande Chaumière is an art school in the VIe arrondissement of Paris, France. The school was founded in 1902 by the Swiss Martha Stettler , who refused to teach the strict academic rules of painting of the École des Beaux-Arts. It opened the way to the "Art Indépendant"...

    , Paris, with Avni

Teaching

  • Established studio with Yehezkel Streichman which was active until 1948
  • 1952–60 Avni Institute of Art and Design
    Avni Institute of Art and Design
    The Avni Institute of Art and Design is an Israeli art school located in Tel Aviv. The institute is known for teaching and employing many well known Israeli artists and designers....

    , Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

  • 1962–77 Haifa University and Avni Institute of Art and Design
    Avni Institute of Art and Design
    The Avni Institute of Art and Design is an Israeli art school located in Tel Aviv. The institute is known for teaching and employing many well known Israeli artists and designers....


Awards and Prizes

  • 1941 The Dizengoff Prize
    Dizengoff Prize
    The Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture is awarded annually by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality since 1937.The following is a table of Dizengoff Prize laureates in their respective art form:...

     for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa, Tel Aviv
  • 1956 The Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa, Tel Aviv
  • First Prize Tower of David Exhibition, Jerusalem, 1967.
  • Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, Israel Museum
    Israel Museum
    The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

    , Jerusalem, 1976.

External links

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