Two drawings by Yosl Bergner (1920-2017).
1. Scarasella (a portrait of Shmulik Segal as Scarasella in the play "The Gypsies of Jaffa" by Nissim Aloni). Mixed media on paper. Inscribed to Shmulik Segal (Yiddish), signed and dated 1971.
24X17 cm. Good condition.
2. Portrait of Shmulik Segal. Mixed media on paper. Inscribed to Shmulik Segal (Yiddish), signed and dated 1961/1971.
24X21.5 cm. Good condition.
Both drawings are framed together; unexamined out of frame.
Provenance: The estate of Shmulik Segal.
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Yosl Bergner (1920-2017) was born in Vienna. His parents, singer Fanya Bergner and poet Melech Ravitch, were active in various cultural and intellectual circles, nurturing his creativity from a young age. In his youth he studied painting with artist Hirsch Altman in Warsaw, and at the age of seventeen immigrated with his sister to Australia, where he studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne. During World War II, he served in the Australian Army. After the war, he married artist and writer Audrey Bergner, and in 1950 the two immigrated to Israel. Bergner first settled in Safed, later moving to Tel-Aviv, where he lived and worked until his death at the age of 97.
Bergner was a prolific artist, working in various fields – painting, book illustration and scenic and costume design. His multifaceted work, at times somber and at times bright, is inspired by surrealism and symbolism. Art critic Dr. Gideon Ofrat, in a tribute to Bergner published in the Erev Rav journal (January 2017), writes: "Ever since the paintings he made in the 1940s after the stories of Y.L. Peretz, Bergner never ceased telling us stories with his paintings. The stories of the Jewish sage, whose one eye is laughing while the other is weeping. Bergner never stopped telling the stories of the exiles, the expelled, the refugees, the seekers of the shore of Redemption […] Bergner repeatedly declared in his paintings: for the exiled wanderers – these furniture, kitchen utensils, lanterns, etc. – there is no safe haven; any safe haven is nothing but an existential illusion. And thus, in an endless desert […] and under the bleak sky, Bergner sentences humankinds – Jews and non-Jews alike – to what Y.H. Brenner calls 'exile everywhere' and 'an existence of thorns'" (Hebrew).

Yosl Bergner (1920-2017), Untitled, 1961.
Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated.
70.5X50 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. Framed; unexamined out of frame.
Provenance: The Estate of Shmulik Segal.
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Yosl Bergner (1920-2017) was born in Vienna. His parents, singer Fanya Bergner and poet Melech Ravitch, were active in various cultural and intellectual circles, nurturing his creativity from a young age. In his youth he studied painting with artist Hirsch Altman in Warsaw, and at the age of seventeen immigrated with his sister to Australia, where he studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne. During World War II, he served in the Australian Army. After the war, he married artist and writer Audrey Bergner, and in 1950 the two immigrated to Israel. Bergner first settled in Safed, later moving to Tel-Aviv, where he lived and worked until his death at the age of 97.
Bergner was a prolific artist, working in various fields – painting, book illustration and scenic and costume design. His multifaceted work, at times somber and at times bright, is inspired by surrealism and symbolism. Art critic Dr. Gideon Ofrat, in a tribute to Bergner published in the Erev Rav journal (January 2017), writes: "Ever since the paintings he made in the 1940s after the stories of Y.L. Peretz, Bergner never ceased telling us stories with his paintings. The stories of the Jewish sage, whose one eye is laughing while the other is weeping. Bergner never stopped telling the stories of the exiles, the expelled, the refugees, the seekers of the shore of Redemption […] Bergner repeatedly declared in his paintings: for the exiled wanderers – these furniture, kitchen utensils, lanterns, etc. – there is no safe haven; any safe haven is nothing but an existential illusion. And thus, in an endless desert […] and under the bleak sky, Bergner sentences humankinds – Jews and non-Jews alike – to what Y.H. Brenner calls 'exile everywhere' and 'an existence of thorns'" (Hebrew).

Mordechai Levanon (1901-1968), The Slopes of Mount Canaan, 1965.
Oil on canvas. Signed and dated. Titled on verso.
91X64 cm, in a 113X85 cm frame. Good condition.
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Mordechai Levanon (1901-1968), born in Transylvania (today, Romania), immigrated to Palestine in 1921. During the years 1925-1927, he studied painting in the studio of Yitzchak Frenkel (Frenel) in Tel-Aviv and in 1929-1930 was a member of the "Massad" group of young artists together with Avigdor Stematsky, Aharon Avni, Joseph Kossonogi and others. In 1938, he moved from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem and in the early 1960s opened a studio in Safed.
Levanon often painted the landscapes of Palestine, and especially the landscapes of Safed and Jerusalem, between which he divided his time. His style was rooted in expressionism and many of the landscapes he painted, often without leaving his studio, have a dreamy or mystical quality. Art and theater critic Haim Gamzu defined Levanon as "one of our most important expressionist artists, one of the most genuine artists of vision. He was all truth and his work is truth. Personal, original truth…" (Dr. Haim Gamzu: Art Critiques. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2006. p. 260).
Levanon was twice awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting (in 1940 and in 1961).