Nachum Gutman 1898-1980

Sale: Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv, December 17, 1984, lot 434, illustrated

Capetown, Ashby Gallery, Nachum Gutman Paintings of Old and New Palestine, 1934, no. 8; exhibition then traveled to Durban and Johannesburg

Canvas lined. Scattered small areas of blistering where it appears canvas is slightly lifting from lining. Under UV: small areas of frame abrasion and inpainting along edges. Area of inpainted approximately 3 by 2 inches at upper center left of tower. Area of in painting 2 x 1 1/2 inches at upper right above castle wall. Overall in good condition with bright colors.
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This work has been authenticated by Prof. M. Gutman.

Nachum Gutman was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel in 1905, where he made a name for himself as a unique and renowned writer, artist and illustrator. He studied at the Herzlia Gymnasium in Tel Aviv and then at the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem (1912). His studies at Bezalel were brief and he was amongst numerous other students who began to rebel against the old school manner of instruction at the institution.  He served in the Jewish Legion during the First World War and then left Israel to continue his art studies abroad – in Vienna, Paris and Berlin. The result of his rebellion and his sojourn in Europe was the development of a unique style that combined his personal experience of building a new life in Israel, and his adoption of the modernist trends prevalent at the time in European art.

This unique painting is a wonderful example of Gutmans' work of the 1920s. Influenced by the naïve style of Henri Rousseau and by the optimism and innocence of this period in Israel, Gutman depicts this idyllic Old City landscape with great detail. Like the other young artists then in Israel, Gutman found the forms and colors of the local countryside and its exotic character enticing. "We didn't want to paint solemn Jews in synagogues or at the Western Wall. We wished to depict the country's landscapes and their different hues...We sensed that only one thing would bind them together...not painting the [Western] Wall with pathetic Jews, but seeing Jews of the kind we learned about in the Bible. Painting landscapes in sharp, frothy colors.' (Nachum Gutman, Between Sand and Blue Skies (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1980 as quoted  in Gideon Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in Israel, Canada, 1998, p. 48).