Avigdor arikha biography of donald

Painter, draughtsman, printmaker, designer, and writer

Avigdor Arikha moved from Israel to Paris in where he was an integral part of the artistic and intellectual life of the city until his death on 29 April A painter, draughtsman, printmaker and art historian, he is known for working only in natural light and for producing each of his works in one day. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family, Arikha was deported, in , to a Transnistrian concentration camp, where his father died.

He survived thanks to sketches he composed on scraps of paper, depicting the horrors of the holocaust. In , at the age of fifteen Arikha moved to the British Mandate of Palestine. Schooled in Jerusalem mostly by Bauhaus teachers who had escaped Germany, Arikha adopted a modernist approach, mastering multiple skills and mediums in line with Bauhaus principles.

He subsequently focussed on solely figurative, black and white drawing for a period of eight years, prioritising the act of observation over memory or imagination. In , Arikha began working in colour again. Partly on the basis of fresco techniques he had been taught at the Beaux Arts, he created a medium that made paint dry under his hand, forcing him to complete each work within a single day.

He worked only in natural light, painting urgently with no preparatory sketches. Often painting from his top-floor home studio, his subject matter included still-lifes, landscapes, interiors and portraits. The crowded views of Parisian rooftops allowed skilful examination of perspective and light; as with his still-lifes and portraits that captured social life at the apartment and the character of his wife, two daughters and remarkable coterie of friends, including Samuel Beckett, Giacometti and Henri Cartier-Bresson, amongst others.

Throughout the eighties and nineties Arikha also rose to prominence as an art historian, lecturing around the world. Arikha is survived by his wife, two daughters and four grandchildren. Lee Gallery, Houston, US.