Lot 14
  • 14

Moshe Elazar Castel

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
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Description

  • Moshe Elazar Castel
  • Father and Son
  • Signed M. Castel and dated 28 (lower left)
  • Oil on canvas laid down on board
  • 31 by 25 in.
  • 79 by 63.5 cm
  • Painted in 1928.

Provenance

Acquired between 1931–58

Exhibited

London, Bonhams, Bonhams Israeli: Israeli Works from the Ben Uri Collection, 2011, no. 4

Literature

Ben Uri Collection, Ben Uri Art Society Permanent Collection Catalogue, London, 1959, no. 29
Walter Schwab & Julia Weiner, Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection: Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Sculpture, London, 1994, p. 32, no. 59, not illustrated
The Public Catalogue Foundation, Oil Paintings in Public Ownership: Camden, Vol. 11 London, 2013, illustrated p.11

Condition

Oil on canvas, canvas is wax lined. Surface: In generally good condition aside from being slightly pressed forward and faint creases from the lining. UNDER UV: Scattered dots and dashes of inpainting, predominantly in the background and on the central figure's sash.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Castel, unlike most of his contemporaries who were born and trained in Europe before emigrating to Eretz Israel, was born in Jerusalem in 1909, to a family who had lived in Hebron since 1492. He was accepted into the Bezalel Art School under the direction of Boris Schatz at age 13, where his talents were recognized and he was encouraged to travel to Paris to further his study. In 1927, Castel moved to Paris where he studied, worked, and exhibited until he fled in 1940, settling in the artist’s colony of Safed.

In his first year in Paris, the artist studied at Académie Julien and at the Musée du Louvre, where he learned from the masterworks on the walls. His first studio, in Montparnasse, was across a courtyard from that of Giacometti. His works were included in the city’s important salon’s, including the Salon Zbrowski, where works were exhibited by Soutine and Modigliani. In 1936 Castel would organize the first École de Paris exhibition in Israel, bringing some of these artists’ works to the Tel Aviv Museum, including works by Soutine and Chagall. He would of course be one of the foundational members of the New Horizons group upon his return to Eretz Israel. This rich artistic life has its roots in the works from the 1920s.

The fully realized narrative in his work Father and Son from 1928 is born from his diligent studio portraits of the previous years. In Father and Son the figures tell a story. They have a specific relationship to one another and to the neighborhood they are strolling through. Castel would carry this theme of figures walking through their home environments, interacting with one another, into the 1930s in his pastoral scenes of Arab villages. Even the red belt would remain a visual element repeated in Castel’s later works, an opportunity to include this bold eye-catching color, a painterly signature. Considering Castel’s upbringing, this could even be a self-portrait of the artist as a child walking hand in hand with his own father, Rabbi Yehuda Castel; perhaps they are on their way to study at the religious school his father ran, where Castel studied as a child.

“Even in cynical, worldly Paris, Moshe Castel remained the naïve little Sephardic boy from Jerusalem. It was on the Left Bank of the Seine that he painted his moving vignettes of Jerusalem… the biblical memories of his childhood that had not left him for a moment.” (Dr. Howard Morley Sachar, Castel, Neuchatel, Switzerland 1968)