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Line 1: {{Short description\|Israeli artist (1929–2010)}} ~~'''Avigdor Arikha''' (born [[April 28]], [[1929]]) is an [[Israeli]] and [[France\|French]] painter, [[printmaker]], and art historian.~~ {{Use mdy dates\|date=September 2016}} {{Infobox artist \| name = Avigdor Arikha \| Born = \| image = File:Avigdor Arikha (Portrait).jpg \| caption = Arikha in 1980 \| birth_date = {{birth date\|df=yes\|1929\|4\|28}} \| birth_place = [[Rădăuți]], Romania \| death_date = {{death date and age\|df=yes\|2010\|4\|29\|1929\|4\|28}} \| death_place = [[Paris]], France \| nationality = Israeli, French, Romanian \| field = Painter, [[Drawing\|draughtsman]], [[printmaker]], and [[art historian]] \| training = [[Bezalel Academy of Art and Design]]\| \| works = \| patrons = \| awards = \| birth_name = Victor Długacz \| spouse = Anne Atik }} '''Avigdor Arikha''' ({{langx\|he\|אביגדור אריכא}}; April 28, 1929 – April 29, 2010) was a Romanian-born French–Israeli artist, [[printmaker]] and art historian. ==Biography== Arikha was born to German-speaking parents in [[Rădăuţi]], near [[Czernowitz]], in what was then called [[Bukovina]], and is today in [[Romania]]. (''See [[Romania during World War II]]'') His family faced forced deportation in [[1941]] to the [[concentration camps]] of Western Ukraine, where his father died. He managed to survive thanks to the drawings he made of deportation scenes, which were shown to delegates of the [[International Red Cross]]. As a result of that, both he and his sister were freed and brought to [[Palestine (mandate)\|Palestine]] in 1944. Between 1944 and 1948, he was in the Ma'aleh Hahamishah [[Kibbutz]]. In 1948 he was severely wounded in [[Israel's War of Independence]]. From 1946 to 1949, he attended the [[Bezalel Academy of Art and Design\|Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts]] in [[Jerusalem]]; its teaching was based on the [[Bauhaus]] methods. In 1949 he was awarded a scholarship which enabled him to study at the [[Ecole des Beaux Arts]] in [[Paris]], where he learned the [[fresco]] technique. Since 1954, Arikha has continuously resided in Paris. Victor Długacz (later Avigdor Arikha) was born to German-speaking Jewish parents in [[Rădăuţi]], but grew up in [[Czernowitz]] in [[Bukovina]], Romania (now in Ukraine).<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083917.html\|title=His Lifelines, Haaretz\|website=haaretz.com\|accessdate=January 31, 2018}}</ref> His father was an accountant. In 1941, the family was forcibly deported to the Romanian-run [[concentration camps]] of Transnistria, where his father was beaten to death.<ref>[https://forward.com/culture/153892/arikhas-art-of-rigor-and-confrontation/ Arikha's Art of Rigor and Confrontation]</ref> Arikha survived thanks to the drawings he made of deportation scenes, which were shown to delegates of the [[International Red Cross]]. Arikha [[aliyah\|immigrated]] to [[Mandatory Palestine]] in 1944, together with his sister. Until 1948, he lived in Kibbutz [[Ma'ale HaHamisha]]. In 1948 he was severely wounded in [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]]. From 1946 to 1949, he attended the [[Bezalel Academy of Art and Design\|Bezalel School of Art]] in Jerusalem. In 1949 he won a scholarship to study at the [[Ecole des Beaux Arts]] in Paris, where he learned the [[fresco]] technique. From 1954, Arikha resided in Paris. Arikha was married from 1961 until his death to the American poet and writer [[Anne Atik]], with whom he had two daughters. Arikha died in Paris on April 29, 2010,<ref>{{cite news\|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/arts/01arikha.html\|title=Avigdor Arikha, Israeli Artist of the Everyday, Dies at 81\|first=Margalit\|last=Fox\|work=The New York Times \|date=May 1, 2010\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|via=NYTimes.com\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104132400/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/arts/01arikha.html\|archivedate=November 4, 2015\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> the day after his 81st birthday. In the late 1950s, Arikha evolved into abstraction and established himself as an [[abstract painter]], but he eventually came to think of abstraction as a dead end. In 1965 he stopped painting and began drawing, only from life, treating all subjects in a single sitting. Continuing on this path for the next eight years, his activity was confined to drawing and printmaking until late 1973, when he felt an urge to resume painting. His practice has remained to paint directly from the subject, using no preliminary drawing, finishing a painting, pastel, print, ink or drawing in one session. He is noted for his portraits, nudes, still lives, and landscapes, rendered realistically and spontaneously, but clearly bearing the lessons of abstraction, and in particular of [[Mondrian]]. He has also illustrated some of the texts of [[Samuel Beckett]], with whom he maintained until the writer's death a close friendship. ==Art career== Arikha has painted a number of commissioned portraits, including that of H.M. Queen Elizabeth, the [[Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon\|Queen Mother]] (1983), [[Lord Home of the Hirsel]], former Prime Minister of the [[United Kingdom]] (1988), both in the collection of the [[Scottish National Portrait Gallery]], [[Edinburgh]]. Other portraits include those of [[Catherine Deneuve]] (1990) for the French State, or that of the former Prime Minister [[Pierre Mauroy]] for the city of [[Lille]]. [[File:Avigdor Arikha in gordon gallery.JPG\|thumb\|Arikha paintings, Gordon Gallery]] In the late 1950s, Arikha established himself as an [[abstract painter]], but he eventually came to think of abstraction as a dead end. In 1965 he stopped painting and began drawing, only from life, treating all subjects in a single sitting. He engaged in drawing and printmaking only for the next eight years. In 1973, he resumed painting and became "perhaps the best painter from life in the last decades of the 20th century", as he was hailed in an obituary in ''Economist'' magazine.<ref>{{cite news\|url=http://www.economist.com/node/16103920\|title=Avigdor Arikha\|newspaper=The Economist\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709094316/http://www.economist.com/node/16103920\|archivedate=July 9, 2017\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Arikha painted directly from the subject in natural light only, using no preliminary drawing, finishing a painting, pastel, print, ink, or drawing in one session. His profound knowledge of art techniques and masterly draughtsmanship enabled him to abide by this principle of immediacy, partly inspired by Chinese brush painting. It was a principle he shared with his close friend [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]],<ref>{{cite web\|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/museums/photogallery/bresson/gal_3-15.htm\|title=Washingtonpost.com: Portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson\|website=www.washingtonpost.com\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222315/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/museums/photogallery/bresson/gal_3-15.htm\|archivedate=March 3, 2016\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> to whose "instant décisif" it was analogous. As an art historian, Arikha has written catalogues for exhibitions on [[Poussin]] and [[Ingres]] for which he was curator at the [[Musée du Louvre]], the [[Frick Collection]] of New York, the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Houston]], and the [[Israel Museum Jerusalem]]. His writings include <i>Ingres, Fifty Life Drawings</i> (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/Frick Collection, New York, 1986); <i>Peinture et Regard</i> (Paris: Hermann, 1991, 1994); <i>On Depiction</i> (London: Bellew Publishing, 1995); and numerous essays published in the [[New York Review of Books]], [[The New Republic]], [[Commentaire]], [[Literary Imagination]], etc. He has also lectured widely, at [[Princeton University]], at [[Yale University]], at the [[Frick Collection]] in New York, at the [[Prado]] Museum in [[Madrid]], and at many other venues. Most recently, he was invited by the [[Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum]] in Madrid to select a number of works from its collection and to write the entries for the catalogue accompanying the resulting exhibition. He never drew from memory or photographs, aiming to depict the truth of what lay before his eyes at that moment. He is noted for his portraits, nudes, [[still lifes]], and landscapes, rendered realistically and spontaneously. In their radical spatial composition, his work clearly harks back to abstraction, and in particular [[Piet Mondrian\|Mondrian]]. ~~From July 2006-January 2007 there was an exhibition at the [[British Museum]] of Arikha's bequest to it of one hundred prints and drawings.~~ Arikha painted a number of commissioned portraits, including that of [[Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon\|Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother]] (1983), [[Lord Home of the Hirsel]], former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1988), both in the collection of the [[Scottish National Portrait Gallery]], Edinburgh. Other portraits include those of [[Catherine Deneuve]] (1990) for the French State, or that of the former Prime Minister [[Pierre Mauroy]] for the city of [[Lille]]. ~~Arikha has been married since 1961 to the American poet and writer [[Anne Atik]], most recently author of a memoir on [[Samuel Beckett]].~~ Arikha also illustrated texts by [[Samuel Beckett]], with whom he maintained a close friendship until the writer's death. ==Artistic style== Art critic Marco Livingstone wrote that Arikha "bridged the modernist avant-garde of pure abstraction with traditions of observational drawing and painting stretching back to the Renaissance and beyond. He was truculently insistent that he was not part of any "return to figuration", but rather had found his own way as "a post-abstract representational artist"."<ref>{{cite web\|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/avigdor-arikha-artist-and-scholar-who-sought-to-capture-existential-truths-in-the-everyday-1990003.html\|title=Avigdor Arikha: Artist and scholar who sought to capture existential\|date=June 3, 2010\|website=independent.co.uk\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303194856/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/avigdor-arikha-artist-and-scholar-who-sought-to-capture-existential-truths-in-the-everyday-1990003.html\|archivedate=March 3, 2016\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> ==Art catalogues and public speaking== As an art historian, Arikha wrote catalogues for exhibitions on [[Poussin]] and [[Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres\|Ingres]] for which he was curator at the [[Musée du Louvre]], the [[Frick Collection]] of New York, the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Houston]], and the [[Israel Museum]] in Jerusalem. His writings include ''Ingres, Fifty Life Drawings'' (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston/Frick Collection, New York, 1986); ''Peinture et Regard'' (Paris: Hermann, 1991, 1994; new, augmented edition 2011); ''On Depiction'' (London: Bellew Publishing, 1995); and numerous essays published in such journals as the [[New York Review of Books]],<ref>{{cite magazine\|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1986/11/06/pintor-real/\|title=Pintor Real\|first=Avigdor\|last=Arikha\|date=November 6, 1986\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|via=www.nybooks.com\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201131442/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1986/11/06/pintor-real/\|archivedate=December 1, 2017\|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine\|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/05/18/giacomettis-code/\|title=Giacometti's Code\|first=Avigdor\|last=Arikha\|date=May 18, 1989\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|via=www.nybooks.com\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201081105/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/05/18/giacomettis-code/\|archivedate=December 1, 2017\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> [[The New Republic]], [[Commentaire]], [[Literary Imagination]], etc. He was invited to speak at [[Princeton University]], [[Yale University]], the [[Frick Collection]] in New York, and the [[Prado]] Museum in Madrid. In 2006, he was invited by the [[Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum]] in Madrid to select a number of works from its collection and write entries for the exhibit catalogue.<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2006/Arikha/index_ing.htm\|title=Arikha\|website=www.museothyssen.org\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201182007/http://www2.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2006/Arikha/index_ing.htm\|archivedate=December 1, 2017\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> ==Exhibits== Arikha showed frequently (every two years, in London and New York) at the gallery that represented him from 1972, Marlborough, and over the decades he had over two dozen solo shows.<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/biography-Avigdor-Arikha-53.html\|title=Marlborough\|website=www.marlboroughfineart.com\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=dead\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610092844/http://www.marlboroughfineart.com/biography-Avigdor-Arikha-53.html\|archivedate=June 10, 2014\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> In 1998 Arikha had a major retrospective at the [[Israel Museum]], Jerusalem (of paintings) and at the [[Tel Aviv Museum of Art]] (of prints and drawings), which travelled to Edinburgh's [[Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art]] in 1999. From July 2006 – January 2007 there was an exhibition at the [[British Museum]] of Arikha's bequest to it of one hundred prints and drawings. There was a retrospective of his prints at the [[Bibliothèque Nationale]] in Paris in 2008. From June to September 2008 the [[Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum]] in Madrid hosted another retrospective exhibition of the artist.<ref>{{cite web\|url=http://www.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2008/Arikha/index_ing.htm\|title=Arikha\|website=www.museothyssen.org\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001238/http://www.museothyssen.org/microsites/exposiciones/2008/Arikha/index_ing.htm\|archivedate=March 4, 2016\|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{YouTube\|YMCwntJ3JhM}}</ref> The Estate of Avigdor Arikha has been represented by [[Blain Southern]] since 2018, with the first exhibition of landscapes in Berlin.<ref>{{cite web\|url=https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/landscapes\|title=Blain-Southern\|website=Blain Southern\|accessdate=January 31, 2018\|url-status=live\|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180131151747/https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/landscapes\|archivedate=January 31, 2018\|df=mdy-all}}</ref> In June 2019, 50 of Arikha's works were exhibited in a retrospective of his work at the [[Benaki Museum]] in Athens.<ref>{{Cite web\|url=https://www.benaki.org//index.php?option=com_events&view=event&id=5956&type=1&Itemid=559&lang=en\|title=Avigdor Arikha: A Breath - Benaki Museum\|website=www.benaki.org\|language=el-gr\|access-date=2019-07-08}}</ref> ==Awards and recognition== * 1954 Gold Medal, Triennial for Applied Art, Milan, Italy * 1959 Prize, Painters and Sculptors Exhibition, Graduates of Youth Aliyah * 1978 Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, France * 1987 [[Grand Prix des Arts de la Ville Paris]], Paris, France * 1989 Prix des Arts des Lettres et des Sciences, Fondation du Judaïsme Français, Paris, France * 1995 Honorary Professor, National Academy of Fine Arts of China, Hangzhou, China * 1997 Doctor Honoris Causa of Philosophy, The [[Hebrew University]], Jerusalem * 2005 Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, Paris, France ==Books on Arikha== * ''Arikha'', by [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Robert Hughes (critic)\|Robert Hughes]], [[André Fermigier]](et al.) (Paris: Hermann; London: Thames and Hudson, 1985). ~~Besides the many exhibition catalogues published by his gallery, [[Marlborough Gallery]], these include:~~ * ''Arikha'', by [[Duncan Thomson]] (London: Phaidon, 1994). * ''Avigdor Arikha'', by Monica Ferrando and Arturo Schwarz (Bergamo: Moretti & Vitali, 2001). * ''Avigdor Arikha: From Life – Drawings and Prints, 1965–2005'', by Stephen Coppel and Duncan Thomson (London: British Museum Press, 2006), published to accompany their 2006–07 exhibition. * [https://web.archive.org/web/20100223035734/http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen/ficha_producto/9 ''Arikha''], catalogue of the exhibition at the Thyssen-Borenmisza Collection, Madrid, Ed. Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza 2008. ==References== * <i>Arikha</i>, by [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Robert Hughes]], [[André Fermigier]](et al) (Paris: Hermann; London: Thames and Hudson, 1985) {{reflist}} * <i>Arikha</i>, by Duncan Thomson (London: Phaidon, 1994) * <i>Avigdor Arikha</i>, by Monica Ferrando and Arturo Schwarz (Bergamo: Moretti & Vitali, 2001) * <i>Avigdor Arikha: From Life - Drawings and Prints, 1965-2005</i>, by Stephen Coppel and Duncan Thomson (London: British Museum Press, 2006), published to accompany their 2006-7 exhibition. ~~Avigdor Arikha was born in edinburgh, Scotland. He painted many still life paintings~~ ==~~See~~External ~~also~~links== {{IMJ-Collections\|first= Avigdor\|last=Arikha\|accessdate=September 2016}} {{Europeana\|last=Arikha\|first=Avigdor\|accessdate=February 2012}} [https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/landscapes Arikha at Blain\|Southern] {{Webarchive\|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180131151747/https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/landscapes \|date=January 31, 2018 }} [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/arikha_avigdor.html Arikha Online] [https://web.archive.org/web/20160924195518/http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/search?q=Avigdor%20Arikha British Museum – Avigdor Arikha] [http://www.britishmuseum.co.uk/Product.aspx?ID=1134] {{Authority control}} ~~[[Category:1929 births\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Living people\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Contemporary painters\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Art historians\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Printmakers]]~~ ~~[[Category:Israeli immigrants\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Israeli painters\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Jews in Ottoman and British Palestine\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ ~~[[Category:Romanian Jews\|Arikha, Avigdor]]~~ {{DEFAULTSORT:Arikha, Avigdor}} ~~[[es:Avigdor Arikha]]~~ [[Category:1929 births]] ~~[[he:אביגדור אריכא]]~~ [[Category:2010 deaths]] [[Category:Contemporary painters]] [[Category:Israeli art historians]] [[Category:Israeli emigrants to France]] [[Category:French art historians]] [[Category:Jewish historians]] [[Category:Draughtsmen]] [[Category:Romanian emigrants to Mandatory Palestine]] [[Category:Israeli male painters]] [[Category:People from Rădăuți]] [[Category:Jewish Romanian artists]] [[Category:Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design alumni]] [[Category:Israeli portrait painters]] [[Category:French male non-fiction writers]] [[Category:Knights of the Legion of Honour]] [[Category:20th-century French printmakers]] [[Category:Deaths from Merkel-cell carcinoma]] [[Category:Israeli printmakers]] [[Category:French printmakers]]