REUVEN RUBIN | THE BLUE HORSES

Sale: Matsart Auctions, Jerusalem, June 27, 2007, lot 70

Purchased from the above by the present owner

This work was painted at the peak of Rubin's interest in the interpretation and depiction of galloping horses. “Toward the end of the fifties Rubin began to be much occupied with horses running in the desert as a subject for painting. He says he was inspired by his visits to the Negev... He would watch from afar the Bedouin horsemen galloping across the wastes where once Abraham sojourned and where Hagar had wandered with Ishmael, and so to him the distant riders would take on the appearance of Biblical figures... He was fascinated by the mysterious atmosphere of the desert, and in several canvases there is a strong element of fantasy. The paintings become poetic symphonies of color, imbued with an atmosphere of mysticism; unlike most of Rubin's work, they are not tranquil in spirit but filled with turbulence, now riderless, are driven onward by an unknown force. He uses color arbitrarily; the horses are in blues, while the background, with a huge moon, is in greens, or the horses are in reds and the background in purples. The horses are delineated by thin contour lines, but so masterly is Rubin's draftsmanship that the forms have real solidity.” (Sarah Wilkinson, Reuven Rubin, New York, 1974, pp. 90-91).