Mordechai Levanon (1901-1968), Old Safed, 1962.
Oil on canvas. Signed and dated. Titled on verso.
72X59 cm, in a 97X83 cm frame. Good condition. Minor blemishes.
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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).

Yehiel Krize (1909-1968), Figures.
Oil on board. Signed. ?Yechiel Krize (1909-1968), born in Turek (Poland), immigrated to Palestine with his family in 1923. At first he worked as his father's apprentice, painting houses, and in his twenties, was employed as a packer in citrus orchards. At that time, having no background in art, he started painting. Later, he studied at the studios of Avigdor Stematsky and Joseph Zaritsky, and in 1935, travelled to study art in Paris. During his stay in Europe he worked in the artists' colony in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland. In 1947-1948, he was twice awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting.
Krize was close to artists of the New Horizons movement, his style growing increasingly abstract over the years, especially after his seven-month stay in New York in 1958-1959. Nevertheless, he chose to work as an independent artist, not joining any group. Solo exhibitions of his work were held at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, at the Artists' House in Tel-Aviv and Haifa and elsewhere, but his works were also exhibited in the official New Horizons exhibition at the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod, in 1963.
Approx. 46X35 cm, in a 72X61 cm frame. Minor blemishes to paint.

Jakob Eisenscher (1896-1980), Houses.
Watercolor on paper. Signed.
Jakob Eisenscher was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire). He studied in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. As World War I broke in 1914 he was conscripted into the Austrian army; in 1915 he was taken captive by the Italians, spending the rest of the war in a Prisoner of War camp. Eisenscher returned to Czernowitz, then a center of Yiddish Avant-garde culture, and started experimenting in woodcuts on top of other media. Immigrating to Paris in the early 30s, he discovered Cubism, which deeply influenced him; he since defined himself an "expressionist cubist". In 1935 he immigrated to Palestine, settling in Tel-Aviv and earning a living as a photographer. Between 1953 and 1968 he taught in Bezalel. His later works are characterized by "semi-cubist, colourist painterly language" as art critic Gideon Ofrat puts it.
"Eisenscher translated the architectural elements which he observed into the architectural structures of his paintings, infusing them with colourism […] The landscape details were abstracted in favor of formal, colorful essences. Eisenscher avoided spontaneous lines and dramatic brush strokes; the poetry and music of his landscapes are conveyed primarily by the tones and formal rhythm". (Broader Horizons, 120 Years of Israeli Art, by Gideon Ofrat. The Vienna-Jerusalem Foundation for Israeli Art, 2013. p. 114).
25.5X22 cm, in a 40X33 cm frame. Fair condition. Creases. Brittle paper. Unexamined out of frame.

Lea Nikel (1918-2005), Untitled, 1964.
Mixed media on paper. Signed and dated.
60.5X45.5 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes to margins.?Lea Nikel (1918-2005) was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine and in 1920 immigrated with her family to Palestine. She took her first steps in painting at the age of 16 as the student of artist Chaim Gliksberg, later studying with Yechezkel Streichman and Avigdor Stematsky. During the years 1950-1961 she lived in Paris. At that time, she was introduced to Tachisme (a style of abstract painting characterized, among other things, by spontaneous brushwork, drips and blobs of paint) and her work went through a process of abstraction. In 1957, she underwent surgery to treat a brain hemorrhage that severely damaged her sight, but nonetheless continued painting. Nikel never associated herself with any art group or movement and did not change her unique style of abstract painting even when new styles became fashionable in Israel. She was awarded the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art by the Israel Museum in 1972, the Dizengoff Prize in 1982 and the Israel Prize for painting in 1995 (together with Menashe Kadishman).
Provenance: The Uzi Agassi Collection.

Michael Druks (b. 1940), untitled, 1967.
Ink on paper. Signed and dated.
50X70 cm. Good condition. Stains and minor blemishes.
Provenance: The Uzi Agassi Collection.