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Lot Essay
Moshe Kupferman was a founding member of Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot (Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz) where his studio is still open to visitors. He was considered to be one of Israel's most prominent artists, his work enigmatic and unique. Kupferman was awarded the Israel Prize for Painting in the year 2000.
In 1989 Kupferman recounted the events prior to his settling in the Kibbutz: 'I came to Israel... with a wave of immigrants made up of refugees like myself, displaced persons... we all had a strong urge to rehabilitate ourselves, to build a home and a family... after a while I took up painting, which eventually became an absorbing interest'. (quoted in Y. Fisher (ed.), Moshe Kupferman, Works from 1962-2000, Jerusalem, 2002, p. 324)
In the preface to Kupferman's exhibition at the Givon Gallery in 2000, Benjamin Harshav described his work: 'Kupferman's painting evokes a horizon of meaning, hovering between the oppressive and the exuberant, the confined and the harmonious, the disturbing and the triumphant. It is not neutral or devoid of signification, but the significations are ideologically unresolved and indeterminated'.
His oeuvre reveals certain typical elements: 'the grids, the staccato rhythms, the open-edged settings and the scaffoldings are joined by bridge-like, dome elements as well as by bulky, girder-like, technology-based images.' In the process of deciphering these elements: 'a logical sequence is evinced, both immanent and based on biography, but also interpretable as a parallel to the social development of Israel'. (Y. Fisher, op.cit., p. 332)
In 1989 Kupferman recounted the events prior to his settling in the Kibbutz: 'I came to Israel... with a wave of immigrants made up of refugees like myself, displaced persons... we all had a strong urge to rehabilitate ourselves, to build a home and a family... after a while I took up painting, which eventually became an absorbing interest'. (quoted in Y. Fisher (ed.), Moshe Kupferman, Works from 1962-2000, Jerusalem, 2002, p. 324)
In the preface to Kupferman's exhibition at the Givon Gallery in 2000, Benjamin Harshav described his work: 'Kupferman's painting evokes a horizon of meaning, hovering between the oppressive and the exuberant, the confined and the harmonious, the disturbing and the triumphant. It is not neutral or devoid of signification, but the significations are ideologically unresolved and indeterminated'.
His oeuvre reveals certain typical elements: 'the grids, the staccato rhythms, the open-edged settings and the scaffoldings are joined by bridge-like, dome elements as well as by bulky, girder-like, technology-based images.' In the process of deciphering these elements: 'a logical sequence is evinced, both immanent and based on biography, but also interpretable as a parallel to the social development of Israel'. (Y. Fisher, op.cit., p. 332)