Israel Hershberg
Encyclopedia
Israel Hershberg is a figurative
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...

 painter who lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

. Hershberg is head of the Jerusalem Studio School.

Biography

Israel Hershberg was born in 1948 at a displaced persons camp
Displaced persons camp
A displaced persons camp or DP camp is a temporary facility for displaced persons coerced into forced migration. The term is mainly used for camps established after World War II in West Germany and in Austria, as well as in the United Kingdom, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the...

 in Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. He immigrated with his family to Israel in 1949 and lived there until he was nine. In 1958, the family resettled in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

In 1966-1968, he attended the Brooklyn Museum School in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. In 1972, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

, and in 1973, a Master of Fine Arts from the State University of New York at Albany. He studied under Francis Cunningham and the realist artist Lennart Anderson, and absorbed the teaching philosophies of Edwin Dickinson
Edwin Dickinson
Edwin Walter Dickinson was an American painter and draftsman best known for psychologically charged self-portraits, quickly painted landscapes, which he called premier coups, and large, hauntingly enigmatic paintings involving figures and objects painted from observation, in which he invested his...

. Hershberg moved back to Israel with his family in 1984.

Art career

From 1973 to 1984, Hershberg was an instructor of painting and drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

. In 1984 he taught painting at the New York Academy of Art
New York Academy of Art
The New York Academy of Art or the Graduate School of Figurative Art is an American private, not-for-profit art university, located at 111 Franklin Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City.-Foundation:...

. In 1998, he founded the Jerusalem Studio School, a private art school in Jerusalem's Talpiot
Talpiot
Talpiot , is a neighborhood in southeast Jerusalem, Israel, established in 1922 by Zionist pioneers.-Etymology:The name Talpiot derives from a verse in Song of Songs 4:4 – "Thy neck is like the tower of David, built with turrets." According to rabbinic sources, Talpiot refers to the Temple...

 neighborhood that offers intensive training in drawing and painting within the figurative art tradition. It is considered to be the first school established in Israel to teach realist painting based on observation in the tradition of the Old Masters. Hershberg heads the school's “master class” program and is the Artistic Director of the JSS.

Hershberg believes that for a true painter, "reality is a continual feast, a never-ending delight to the eyes." He quotes Albert York
Albert York
Albert York was an American painter.York painted the beauty he saw in the world, once telling an interviewer, "I think we live in a Paradise. . . . This is a Garden of Eden."...

, who said "I think we live in a Paradise. . . . This is a Garden of Eden."

Recognition and awards

Hershberg was the recipient of a Ford Foundation scholarship in 1980. He was awarded the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art in 1991 and the Tel Aviv Museum prize for Israeli Art in 1998. His work has been purchased by the 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....

 in Jerusalem, 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...

, the Jewish Museum
Jewish Museum
Jewish Museum may refer to:Australia* Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne, VictoriaAustria* Jewish Museum ViennaCzech Republic* Jewish Museum of PragueDenmark* Danish Jewish Museum, CopenhagenGeorgia...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

  and the Imagawa Contemporary Art Collection in Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

External links


Further reading

  • Schwarz, Arturo. Love at First Sight, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2001, pp. 75-76, 100.
  • Goodman, Susan Tumarkin. After Rabin – New Art from Israel, exhibition catalog, The Jewish Museum, New York, 1998, pp. 69, 80.
  • Green, David. “Master of the Class,” The Jerusalem Report, February 5, 1998, pp. 42-44.
  • Kushner, Anita. “Confronting the Human Figure”, Haaretz Magazine, March 12, 1999, p. 25.
  • Sheffi, Smadar. “Return to Realism” (“Hazarah l’Realizm”, in Hebrew), Haaretz, August 3, 1999.
  • Hausman, Tamar. “Getting It All Figured Out”, Haaretz, March 16, 2001.
  • Burstein, Dror. “Turning the Bowl on its Edge” (“Hofech et HaKearah Al Piha”, in Hebrew), Kol Ha’Ir, Dec. 5, 2003, p. 67.
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