EIN HAROD.- The Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, presents for the first time an exhibition on Chaïm Soutine (1893-1943) and Israeli art, opening a new chapter in the discourse on the artist. The exhibition features over 40 prominent and emerging Israel artists, many of whose artist statements are quoted in the full-colour catalogue. Of about twenty original works by Soutine, a third are new to the public, and come from public and private collections.

The innovative exhibition is co-curated by Yaniv Shapira, Director and Chief Curator of the Ein Harod museum, Surya Sadekova of the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, and Batsheva Goldman-Ida, PhD, Senior Curator of Special Projects at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Esti Dunow, co-author of Soutine’s catalogue raisonné, serves as consultant.

Since the 1930s, Soutine has had a significant impact on Israeli art. His haunting portraiture and still lifes, his turbulent landscape works, find expression in the works of mature and young Israeli artists; his carcass series being especially prevalent. The artists integrate Soutine’s immediacy and unconditional commitment to his art, his working directly from life, and his painterly gestures and materiality, into their mature work, presenting a powerful, visceral experience to the visitor, in sculpture, painting and video art, revealing their ‘’Naked Soul.’’

The works range from pure abstract to nightmare visions of the demonic, in a variety of mediums from tar-based painting to intense video art, comparable to Ying Li and Mark Lammert, for example. We find artists for whom Soutine is filtered through others who have been impacted by him such as Willem de Kooning and the New York School, Frances Bacon, and Nicolas de Staël and the French Art informel.

Israeli artists include: Pinchas Abramovitch, Chaim Atar (Aptekar, founder of the Ein Harod Museum), Shai Azoulay, Yosl Bergner, Amit Cabessa, Moshe Castel, Yosef-Joseph-Yaakov Dadoune, Yitzhak Frenkel, Aram Gershuni, Moshe Gershuni, Tamar Getter, Tsibi Geva, Tama Goren, Michael Gross, Ardyn Halter, David Handler, Ruthi Helbitz Cohen, Jonathan Hirschfeld, Haran Kislev, Marik Lechner, Mordechai Levanon, Idit Levavi-Gabbait, Uri Lifschitz, Moshe Mokady, Michal Naaman, Amir Nave, Lea Nikel, Avraham Ofek, Assaf Rahat, Jan Rauchwerger, Ori Reisman, Michael Sgan-Cohen, Sima Slonim, Avigdor Stematsky, Yehezkel Streichman, Ran Tenenbaum, Igael Tumarkin, Aviva Uri, Yossef Zaritzky, Pinchas Zinovich

There is also a section on Ècole de Paris artists associated with Soutine, including painters: Pinchus Krémègne, Michael Kikoïne and Henri Epstein; and sculptors: Lèon Indenbaum, Moïse Kisling, Jacques Lipchitz, Chana Orloff, Jules Pascin, and Ossip Zadkine.

The Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, founded in 1938, is one of the largest Kibbutz museums in Israel and houses a quality collection of twentieth century and contemporary painting and sculpture. Built by architect Samuel Bickels, it is one of the earliest examples of modernist architecture and natural light in Israel.