Mordecai Ardon 1896-1992

Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd., London
Golconda Fine Art Ltd., Tel Aviv
Purchased from the above by the present owner

London, Marlborough Fine Art (London) Ltd., Mordechai Ardon, April-May 1973, page 43, no. 31, illustrated
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Ardon - A Retrospective, 1985, no. 98

Michèle Vishny, Mordechai Ardon, New York, p. 234, no. 287, illustrated

In good condition. Small area of brown substance lower right close to red figure(possibly inherent to artist's technique). Under UV: no apparent in-paint.
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Born in Poland in 1896, Ardon studied at the Bauhaus, Weimer under Itten, Klee, Kandinsky and Feininger. In 1926 he studied painting techniques in Munich under Prof. Max Doerner and between 1929-1933 he taught at the Kunstschule Itten in Berlin before immigrating to Jerusalem where he continued to influence many generations of Israeli artists as a teacher, and later director, at the Bezalel School of Art.
Gideon Ofrat described Ardon's work and notes: "Ardon drew on Klee and Feininger for the artistic power of mystery, riddle, and metaphysics. From Rembrandt he picked up the principle of the 'hidden light,' which he associated with the mystical light of Jerusalem ('the higher Jerusalem') and Jewish tradition...The drama of his canvases is organized by meticulously rational composition. Symbolism, surrealism, magic, and metaphysics are all integrated into his work." (Gideon Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in Israel, Canada, 1998, p. 99).
From an early age, Ardon appreciated both classical music and the more avant-garde composers, such as Stravinsky and Hindemith. While in Berlin in the 1920s, he met the German composer Stefan Wolpe with whom he became life-long friends until Wolpe's death in 1972. Ardon was deeply affected by the composer's death and painted the elegiac In Memory of Stefan in 1972 in which he incorporated musical symbolism. It is interested to note that Page 5 of the Spring Score was painted the same year.