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Osias Hofstatter
1905, Bochnia, Galicia, Poland - 1994, Israel
Faces, 1970s
Original Hand-Signed Ink Painting
Artist Name: Osias Hofstatter
Title: Faces
Signature Description: Hand-signed lower left
Technique: Ink on paper (mounted on cardboard)
Image Size: 35 x 36 cm / 13.78" x 14.17" inch
Frame: The painting is unframed
Condition: Very good condition.
Artist's Biography:
Osias Hofstätter (Galicia, Austria-Hungary, 1905 - Israel, 1994)
Osias Hofstatter was born in 1905 in Bochnia, Galicia (historical and geographic region between Central and Eastern Europe), which was under the ruling of the Austro-Hungarian empire (Poland of today). His father was a broker and merchant dealer. With the outbreak of the first world war, in 1914, his family moved to Vienna. In 1915 they moved to Holland. Between 1919-1920 he studied in the Gymnasium in Frankfurt Germany. In 1920 he moved back to Vienna and lived there until 1938. He worked as an accountant, cocoa trader and a merchant of other items. In 1938, following the Anschluss, he was arrested with his family in Vienna. Hofstätter, his brother and his sister managed to flee. In November, he married Anna Shebestova and they settled in Brussels. After the Anschluss he fled to Brussels where he was arrested and separated from his wife. Following the German occupation, he was arrested and sent to the St. Cyprien and Gurs concentration camps. With the assistance of his brother and sister, who lived in Switzerland, he was released, and took refuge in Idron, on the Swiss border. In August 1942, as he attempted to cross the border into Switzerland, he was apprehended and interned in the detention camps of Aigle, Wald and Birmensdorf. In 1943, he was released through the intervention of the Unitarian Service Committee in Geneva, in order to allow him to study art. In Switzerland he painted the experiences of the German conquest. In 1946, he returned to Vienna, where he was reunited with his wife. In 1948, he returned to Poland and settled in Warsaw, where he taught art in a Jewish orphanage and worked as a newspaper graphic editor. In 1957 he immigrated to Israel and settled in Holon. Up until 1970 he worked as a night guard. He then moved to Netanya where he was focused on creating his art. In his last days he lived in Ramat Gan. Most of Hofstatter's work were made in drawings. His watercolors and ink described figures, animals and hybrids in an expressive style. His artworks have been displayed in numerous exhibitions in Israel and internationally. Education 1942 Municipal Art School, Zurich 1946 Art Academy in Vienna Awards and Prizes 1963 Municipality of Holon Prize, Holon 1968 Prize, Ministry of Education and Culture 1976 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa 1981 Worthy Citizen of Ramat Gan Award 1991 Bank Discount Prize for an Israeli Artist, Tel Aviv Museum of Art 1991 Sussman Prize for Artists Depicting the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1991 Danziger Prize, Jerusalem Solo Exhibitions
2018 Osias Hofstaeter - Two Faced, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art 2007 Osias Hofstatter - 41 Works on Paper, Ashdod Art Museum, Monart Center Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1995 Exhibition in Memory of the Artist Osias Hofstatter (1905-1994), Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva Oaias Hofstatter - Gathering in His Memory, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art 1992 Drawings, Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Solo Exhibition, 1938-1957, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1990 Osias Hofstatter: Masterpieces from the Artist's Collection, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art Panorama, The Municipal Museum ''Bet-Emanuel'', Ramat Gan 1989 Hofstatter: New Works, Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Hofstatter: New Works, Ella Gallery, Jerusalem Beit Yad Labanim, Ramat Hasharon 1988 Osias Hofstatter: Painting and Drawings, Yurek Art Galley, Ramat Hasharon Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv Hofstatter: New Works, Ella Gallery, Jerusalem Municipal Art Gallery, Smilansky Cultural Center, Rehovot 1987 Hamishkan Le'omanut, Beth Meirov, Holon 1986 Solo Exhibition, Turkish Railway Gallery, Be'er Sheva Hofstatter: In Colour, Christie's Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 1985 Retrospective Exhibition of Osaias Hofstatter in Celebration of His 80th Birthday, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva 1984 Ella Gallery, Jerusalem 1983 New York, USA 1982 Ella Gallery, Jerusalem 1980 Mabat - Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1978 Hofstatter: Aquarelles and Drawings, Ella Gallery, Jerusalem Hofstatter, Amit, Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1976 Hofstatter, Sarit Gallery, Tel Aviv 1974 Tel Aviv Art Museum 1973 36 Drawings by Hofstatter, The Camden Arts Center, London 1972 Welch Gallery, Salzburg 1971 Sao Paulo Biennale 1970 Osias Hofstatter - Solo Exhibition, Dugith Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1968 Museum of Modern Art, Haifa Osias Hofstatter: Drawings, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1967 Osias Hofstatter - Watercolors, Dugith Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1966 Osias Hofstatter - Solo Exhibition, Dugith Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1961 Atalia 97, Tel Aviv-Yaffo 1960 Exhibition of Drawings, Ghetto Fighters' House, Kibbutz Lochamei Hagetaot Paintings and Drawings, Bialik School, Holon 1958 Katz Gallery, Tel Aviv
Group Exhibitions 2019 Painting from the Museum Collection, Petach Tikvah Museum of Art 2017 Eyes, don't Haunt Me, Yair Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 2015 Group Exhibition, Yair Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 2014 Group exhibition, The David Yellin Hebrew Teachers’ State Institute, Jerusalem Group Exhibition, Yair Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 2008 In Conflict, Jerusalem Print Workshop, Jerusalem 2006 12 Artists - A Second Glance, Tel Aviv Museum of Art Raffi Lavie Collection, Mishkan Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ein Harod 2005 Etched Voices, Holocaust works of contemporary artists, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2000 Group Exhibition, Hamishkan Le'omanut, Beth Meirov, Holon 1999 Shimshon Crystal / ''Thirty Years of Collecting Israeli Art on Paper'', The Painters and Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv The Municipal Museum ''Bet-Emanuel'', Ramat Gan 1998 Israel - Entre Reve et Realite, Musée Juif de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium 1997 Exhibition of Paintings, The Municipal Museum ''Bet-Emanuel'', Ramat Gan Group Exhibition, New Art Studio, Rishon Le Zion 1996 ''Hester Panim'' - Hiding the Face, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva Artists Messengers of Peace, Artists' House, Jerusalem 1995 “Mirror/Mirro”, Israel Museum, Jerusalem Paper Works, Tova Osman Art Gallery, Tel Aviv 1994 The Printer's Imprint: Twenty Years with the Jerusalem Print Workshop, Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1989 Israeli Artists Draw the Bible, Bible House, Tel Aviv Portrait, Traveling Exhibition, Israel 1988 Modern Drawing - New Approaches, Haifa Museum of Modern Art 1986 The Hot and the Cool in Israel Art: The ''Hot'', Haifa Museum of Modern Art 1985 Black Prints, Jerusalem Print Workshop, Jerusalem 1984 ''Aquarelles 84'', Ella Gallery, Jerusalem Catastrophe, Jerusalem Theater, Jerusalem 1981 The Woman Image in Israeli Art, Traveling Exhibition, Israel 1979 Herzliya Museum The Israeli Grafotec, Shaar Zion Library, Beit Ariella, Tel Aviv Artist's Choice, Tel Aviv Art Museum 1977 One Hundred Years - One Hundred Plus Artists, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva Debel Gallery stand, International Art Fair, Tel Aviv 1976 Award Ceremony of the 28th Dizengoff Prize for the Art of Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa 1974 Autumn 1974, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva 1973 Yodfat Gallery, Tel Aviv 1972 Symbols and Imagination, The Painters and Sculptors Association, Tel Aviv Old and New in the Museum Collection, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva 1971 Israeli Exhibition, São Paulo Art Biennial, San Paolo, Brazil 1970 Israeli Painters 14, Traveling Exhibition, Israel 1969 A Leap of Faith, An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures from Israel, State University of NY, Albany, New York, USA Israel on Paper, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, California 1968 Drawings Exhibition, Art Gallery, Holon 1960/ 1962/ 1963/ 1965 / 1967 General Exhibition, Art in Israel, Tel Aviv Art Museum 1967 Artists in Israel for the Defense, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion Holocaust Paintings, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva 1965 Graphic Works by Contemporary Israeli artists - New Acquisitions, Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1962 Artists' House, Jerusalem 1958 First Decade Exhibition for Painting, Ramat Gan Israeli and International Painting and Sculpture, Shulamit Gallery, Jaffa Additional Information: When Osias Hofstatter arrived in Israel in 1957 and laid down his wandering stick, dams opened releasing a powerful stream of creativity which seeped into the artistic consciousness of the country. Researchers and art critics as well as museum curators define his work as being close to expressionism and the atmosphere as being directly influenced by his personal history. "Hofstatter's art expresses qualities of anxiety, worry, nightmare and panic. There is a tension between the anxiety aroused by the Holocaust and the anxiety due to religious existentialism".
The stigma of a painter of the Holocaust, and his preference for using black ink as a symbolic choice channel the universal work of Hofstatter into a narrow and limited path. A closer look at the paintings which mirror the world of the artist but also express the spirit of the era, make it necessary to free oneself from existing conventions and even to understand the message behind his words: "Perhaps you'll understand that a 'hasid' who looks like a 'hasid' is not a 'hasid'." Hofstatter places the human being in the center of his universe. Over his complex morphology, which is of secondary importance to the artist, are planted, as an artistic act, innumerable essence of two major kinds: one the pure painting which serves as a means for placing the figure within the given frame (mostly paper), the other, to express the sum total of sometimes contradicting truths of which this essence is composed. In the process of creation in which the dimension of time is of secondary importance, beginning in the Sixties, a formula begins to crystallize, by means of which Hofstatter disconnects his works form every connotation, time and place. The landscapes to "populated" urban scenes which express, perhaps, the artist's attachment to "the place", but quickly disappear in order to focus most of the attention on the actors of Hofstatter's tragi-comedy in which laughter and tears blend with the joy and sadness of life. Hofstatter's protagonists are no heroes but neither are they nonentities. The penetration into paper, the etching, the continuous dialogue between the form and the background which characterized his works in the years of untiring search (1950-1970) gave way to a predetermined division between the background which serves as a minimalist stage and the actors in the theater of life. In this theater, the mythology lost its glory, one does not measure royal raiments and the box of illusions is empty. Out of the estrangement blossom ties between the figures, out of generous motherhood sprout signs of disconnection but also signs of freedom, of a new beginning. The human being, whose gender to Hofstatter is of no importance is presented in the nude juxtaposed to the depth of the soul, its nonentity and its greatness. Hofstatter represents the complete artist, a man of knowledge, a sceptic philosopher who never tires of examining the mysteries of life. A humanist and aesthete who touches the most delicate fiber of human pain. He examines suffering but does not wallow in it, and succeeds to a great extent in rising above it. Thus he managers to express universal feeling and thoughts, whose concept of time is infinite. Yoav Dagon (Herzliya Museum of Art Director 1981-1993) The Hofstatters’ estate was transferred to Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art which exhibits a permanent collection of his works. Payment Methods: PayPal, Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard), Bank Cheque. If you wish to send a personal cheque, please note that the item will not be shipped until the cheque clears. Shipping&Handling: All items are sent through registered mail or by E.M.S. Fast delivery service (up to 4-5 business days), depends on the weight and measures of the purchased item. You may add insurance for the item with an additional fee. Please e-mail us for other shipping methods. In case that the frame includes a glass, the item will be shipped without the glass in order to prevent any damage to the artwork caused by broken glass: be aware that such kind of a damage is not covered by the insurance!
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