Gershon Knispel, painter and sculptor, born 1932, Cologne, Germany.
Died in Haifa, Israel, 2018.

1935 Immigrated with his family to the Land of Israel.
1957 Was assistant to Prof. Averberg, Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
1959 Moved to Brazil after winning a competition to design a façade for the television tower in Sao Paulo. 
1964 Returned to Israel.
1965 Worked in style of Architect Richard Niemeyer, Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Education
1954 Bezalel, Jerusalem, with Mordecai Ardon., graduate

Teaching
1957 Munich Academy of Fine Arts, Germany, Assistant to Prof. Averberg

Awards and Prizes
1954 Herman Struck Prize, New Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, Jerusalem
1955 The Reuven and Sarah Leif Prize, The New Bezalel School for Arts and Crafts, Jerusalem
1957 Gold Medal, International Exhibition, Moscow, USSR
1963 Prize, Sao Paolo Biennale, San Paolo, Brazil
1966 Ministry of Culture Award
1976 First Prize, Decoration of a Sport Palace, Haifa
1978 First Prize, International Competition, Havana, Cuba
1980 Prize for Engraving, Biennale, Berlin, Germany
1983 First Prize, "Defeat of the 3rd Reich" Monument, Haifa
1988 Frist Prize, 70th Anniversary, HaHistadrut HaKlalit
1991 Gutman Prize, for illustration
2017 Jaboti Prize, Brazil, for his retrospective book

Environmental Sculptures (in Israel)
1974 Haifa, Memorial, in Aluminum
1976 Relief on the wall of the Haifa Sport Center
1976 Relief on the Paz Bridge, Haifa
1976 Sachnin, Memorial on Earth Day

Solo Exhibitions

2017 Creative Modalities: Gershon Knispel, Works on Paper, Hecht Museum, Haifa University
2013 Gershon Knispel Engravings for Alexander Penn's Songs, Hanina Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
2007 Celebrations and Laments, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa
2000 When the Canons Roar Muses Are Silent, The Bar David Museum for Art and Judaica, Kibbutz Bara'am
          Solo Exhibition, Edificio Do Antigo Deops, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1996 ''Vestigios Do Holocausto'', Galeria Rubem Valentim, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1993 Melodies (Variations on a Theme), Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
1990 “Gershon Knispel Documents 1939 – 1945, Museum for Modern Art, Haifa
1987 'Voyage at Sea - Drawings and Paintings 1980-1987'', The National Maritime Museum, Haifa
1956 Solo Exhibition, Katz Gallery, Tel Aviv
1955 Oil paintings and drawings, Mikra Studio, Tel Aviv

Group Exhibitions

2018 No pasarán: Eighty years of the Spanish Civil War, Jerusalem Print Workshop
2017 Perespctives of Protest, Jerusalem Print Workshop
2008 The First Decade: Hegemony and Plurality, Mishkan Le'omanut, Museum of Art, Kibbutz Ein Harod
2003 35 Prints - 35 Years of Occupation, Artists' House, Jerusalem
2002 35 Prints - 35 Years of Occupation, Hagar Art Gallery, Jaffa
1998 Social Realism in the 50's, Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
         Social Realism in the 50's; Political Art in 90's,  Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
1995 Jubilee to Eradicating the ''Final Solution'', Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
         The Green Line / Red Lines, Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
         Small Scale Art, Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
1994 Good Luck - Zodiac Exhibition, Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
         Art Focus - Standpoint in Confrontation, Studio 24 - Beit Hayotzer, Haifa
1988 Haifa - Portrait of a City, Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
         Requiem to a Wadi, Pevzner House, Haifa
         A People Build Its Land: Israeli History as Reflected in Art, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art
1987 New Bezalel, Artists' House, Jerusalem
1978 Artist and Society in Israeli Art, 1948-1978, Tel Aviv Art Museum
1969 Painting and Sculpture Week, Painters and Sculptors Association in Israel, Haifa and the North
         Art Festival, Painting & Sculpture in Israel 1969, Tel Aviv Convention Center
1956 Group Exhibition, Haifa Museum of Modern Art
1954 Young Israeli Painters, Tel Aviv Art Museum

Gershon Knispel (1932 - 2018) was an Israeli painter and sculptor who worked in Israel and Brazil, one of Israel's leading artists in the second half of the 20th century. Throughout his 60 years of artistic activity he has created sculptures, drawings, prints, paintings and more, which have earned him prizes at the international biennales in Berlin, Moscow and Sao Paulo. Belonged to the stream of "Social Realism" in Israeli art.

Biography 

Gershon Knispel was born on September 11, 1932 in Cologne, Germany to Chaim and Eliza Knispel. 
In 1935, due to the rise of the Nazis to power, he immigrated with his family to Palestine (then under the Brirish Mandate).
He studied art at the New Bezalel in the early 1950s and then illustrated lithographs and etchings for poetry books. Among other things, he created illustrations and prints for Alexander Penn, Bertold Brecht and K. Tzetnik. 
He was a member of the Communist Party in Israel and Brazil and was active in political circles in this spirit.

As a prominent representative of the stream of "Social Realism " in Israeli art, Knispel was one of the few artists who addressed the living conditions and the problematic absorption of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors and Sephardim.

In his famous painting, "The Labor Bureau" (1956), he described the unemployed people standing on the doors of the locked labor office. The mayor of Haifa, Abba Hushi, asked the Foreign Ministry not to allow the work to go out to the Moscow youth biennale. The public debate on the subject was stormy, and eventually the work mysteriously disappeared on the way to Moscow. The monumental version of the Labor Office is now in the collection of the Haifa Museum of Art (its method was to work on several versions of each painting).

In 1959 he moved to Brazil after winning a competition to design a façade for the television tower in Sao Paulo. He remained in Brazil for a number of years with artistic cooperation and close friendship with the architect Oscar Niemeyer. 
Knispel became deeply involved in the Brazilian artistic milieu and created sculptures and murals in public areas in several cities.
In 1964, a military coup broke out in Brazil and Knispel, who was a member of the Communist Party, became wanted by the new regime. He escaped from his home and arrived at the Israeli Embassy in Rio de Janeiro in the trunk of a car. 
He left behind dozens of works of art on the facades of public buildings, outdoor sculptures and frescoes in public buildings in various cities of Brazil, which he created throughout his years there. 
In Brazil he also turned to a monumental work that is based on the Holocaust - primarily, but not exclusively, of the Jewish people.

Knispel returned to Israel and lived in Haifa, where he served as artistic advisor to the municipality in 1964-1989. During those years many of his works were placed in the public sphere of Haifa and he was criticized for this. Among his public works in Haifa: the stone work on the Paz bridge, the relief at the front of the sports hall in Romema, and the monument to the Jewish fighter in World War II.

In 1995, after the fall of the military dictatorship, Knispel returned to Brazil and divided his life between Haifa and Sao Paulo.

One of his works was a relief on the wall of the Ironi Hey school in Haifa. 
In 2012, after a number of relief tiles fell, the municipality removed the work and dumped it. As a result, Knispel sued the municipality. The District Court awarded him NIS 533,920 in compensation and other court expenses. The municipality appealed, and the Supreme Court ruled compensation of NIS 460,000. 

In 2016 a comprehensive book on his work “Knispel. Retrospective 60 Years” was published. It edited by Prof. Gila Balas, with texts by Balas, Gideon Ofrat, Natan Zach, Ron Bartosh, Batia Donner, Fabio Maglens and João Batista de Andrade.

In December 2017, his retrospective book, written in Hebrew, English and Portuguese, won first place in the Brazilian Jaboti Prize. 
Knispel, who lived and worked in Brazil for many years and is considered one of its greatest artists, is the first Israeli to win the most important international literary prize of Latin America. The book covers the entire range of the artist's varied work, which was published by the Brazilian government and produced by Latin America.

In the year 2018, his large work "Signing the Peace Prize in Acre" (1953) entered the collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. This work was confiscated by the Brazilian secret police during the dictatorship. When it was restored, decades later, Knispel made a massive restoration, and as of 2018 it is placed in the permanent exhibition of Israeli art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art . 

Knispel was, until his last day, an artist who swam against the tide, with uncompromising criticism. As an anti-establishment artist in essence, at the end of his life he received a broad institutional embrace, including national and international recognition of the importance of his work.

He died in Haifa on September 7, 2018. 

Additional Information:

The painter Gershon Knispel died at the age of 86

Knispel was one of the greatest painters in socialist realism in Israel. In recent decades he lived in Brazil

Shaul Setter, 09.09.2018 / Haaretz

The artist Gershon Knispel died on Friday at the age of 86. Knispel was one of the greatest painters in socialist realism in Israel, a social painter, a Haifaite and a communist all his life. In addition to paintings, he created numerous sculptures and sculptures that are scattered throughout the city of Haifa. He was a leftist, supported a Jewish-Arab coexistence and strongly opposed the occupation and the policies of Israeli governments.

Knispel was born in Cologne, Germany in 1932, and at age three immigrated with his parents to Palestine. He grew up in Haifa, studied art at Bezalel in the early 1950s and after his studies chose to return to the city and create in it. He taught at the Sha'ar Ha'Aliya transit camp, in Kfar Ata and in Nesher. His paintings from those years circumnavigate figures of workers, unemployed and immigrants, and reveal scenes from working life and demonstrations. He painted Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. His paintings are very material, rich in color.

His large-scale painting, "The Signing of the Peace Petition" of 1953, was made following a drawing by Shimon Sabar and describes the Jewish-Arab "peace petition" signed in the Acre market. Another large painting, "The Labor Office," shows unemployed people waiting in front of the locked door of the labor office in Haifa, knocking on it helplessly.

This painting was a milestone, of style and time, in the history of local art, although many people, from the mayor of Haifa Abba Hushi to the modernists of abstraction, did not like him. Knispel also painted the Wadi Salib demonstrations in 1959 and created lithographs to the first book of Alexander Penn's poems, which have long been iconic.

In 1957, a tender was issued for the design of the Brazilian television tower "Tofi" in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Knispel made a proposal based on pre-colonial native bananas. His proposal was chosen and he moved to Sao Paulo and lived there for several years.There he met Oscar Niemeyer, the renowned architect, one of the pioneers of international style in Brazil and a communist.
Knispel became involved in these years in the Brazilian artistic milieu and created many street sculptures and frescoes in various cities. But in 1964 a military revolution took place in Brazil, and Knispel fled Sao Paulo for fear of his life and returned to Haifa. Abba Hushi appointed him director of the Haifa Municipality's art department, and for many years he continued to create sculptures and reliefs for the urban space, such as the relief of the front of the sports hall in Romema.

Together with Abed Abdi, he created in 1976 the monument to the victims of Land Day in Sakhnin. Knispel was active in the affairs of the artists' community and proposed replacing the Association of Painters and Sculptors with the Visual Art Society, which will include photographers, designers and graphic artists, thereby gaining greater power. However, this proposal was not accepted.

In 1995, Knispel returned to Sao Paulo. The period of the military dictatorship ended, Brazil became a democracy, some members of the administration were friends from the 1960s. He was received with great respect and continued to create monumental works for the public space. He performed in many biennales, and about a year ago he won the Jaboti Prize, an important literary prize in South America, which was given to him on the book of the heavy-handed artist he published (edited by Gila Blass). In recent years he has divided his time between Haifa and Sao Paulo and passed away in Israel.

At Knyspell's request, his body will burn in a small family ceremony and ashes will be scattered in the Mediterranean Sea.

CPI Mourns Gershon Knispel, 86, Devoted Communist & Social Artist

CPI / September 21, 2018

The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) mourns the death of the renowned plastic artist and communist militant, Gershon Knispel, one of the great local practitioners of Socialist Realism in the plastic arts, who died at dawn on September 7 in Haifa after 86 years of life and struggle. Knispel was a member of the CPI from 1954 until his last day.

A spokesperson for the CPI has said: “Knispel must be remembered for the commitment and mission he always had in defense of a more just world, and his dedication to humanism, peace and socialism. We are going to miss him.”

Gershon Knispel was born in 1932, Cologne, Germany, and divided his life between Israel and Brazil, where he first arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1957, after winning a contest for the design of the antenna of the Tupi TV station. Knispel’s winning proposal was to adorn it with the standards pre-colonial peoples.

In Brazil, Knispel met the architect Oscar Niemayer, with whom he developed a long friendship and professional partnership. Knispel became deeply involved in the Brazilian artistic milieu and created sculptures and murals in public areas in several cities.
In 1964, in the wake of the military coup, Knispel fled the country in danger of his life, returning to Haifa.

In addition to drawings and paintings, Knispel created sculptures and low reliefs in public areas that are scattered throughout Haifa. There he taught art at Shahar Ha’Alya migrant camp and at public schools in the towns of Kiryat Atta and Nesher and was appointed art director. The results of the work of these years display figures of workers, unemployed and emigrants. They depict scenes from the world of work and political demonstrations.
In paintings marked by realism and intense colors, he portrayed Jews and Arabs. Knispel returned to São Paulo in 1995 and, since then, alternated residing in both Brazil and Israel.
Gershon Knispel was a renowned plastic artist and communist activist: he was one of the most prominent Israeli practitioners of Socialist Realism in the plastic arts.
Knispel died on September 7 in Haifa after 86 years of life and struggle. He was a member of the Israeli Communist Party from 1954 until his last day.

For the Vice President and National Secretary for International Relations of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), Walter Sorrentino, Knispel was “first and foremost a communist. Until the end of his life he was uncompromising in defending the peace and settlement of two states – Israel and Palestine – with their peoples living in harmony. He was critical of the Israeli right which made this peace process unfeasible.”

According to Sorrentino, during the period (1958-1964) during which the artist lived in Brazil, he “made an enormous contribution” to Brazilian culture by sharing activities at the UNE’s Popular Culture Center and collaborated “with the best names of national culture, such as Oscar Niemeyer and Gianfrancesco Guarnieri, our party comrades, Vilanova Artigas, Jorge Amado and many others. Gershon’s contribution in this sense is indelible.”

“I had great friendship and admiration for him. He dedicated an impressive work to the national headquarters of the Communist Party of Brazil in 2003. Gershon had received unpublished poems by Bertold Brecht, donated by the poet’s widow, which he then illustrated in a series of twelve engravings of great dramatic force. It was something that impressed us all and will always remain in our memory,” said Sorrentino.