Lot 104: q - ISRAEL HERSHBERG B. 1948

signed and dated 1991-92

oil on paper laid down on panel

13 3/4 by 15 1/2 in.<br><br>35 by 39.5 cm.

New York, Forum Gallery, A Special Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Israel Hershberg, February 13, March 29, 2003; this exhibition traveled to Los Angeles, Forum Gallery, September 12 - October 18, 2003.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, ISRAEL

Marlborough Gallery Inc., New York

Discussing this work in the brochure for the Forum Gallery exhibitions, Anna Fishko notes: "In the painting, Nova, Hershberg focuses on a brittle and cracked sunflower. Exposure to the sun, the very thing that gives the object its name, has reduced it to a near cinder, drying out all color and vitality. The head of the flower, normally turned up towards the sun, is curved away from us, hiding in shadow. It is through an examination of this shell of the sunflower that we come closer to understanding what it might once truly have been. Our definition of a sunflower is expanded beyond its decaying physical presence to include something metaphysical, to include its experience in the world."

Israel Hershberg was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Austra in 1948. He arrived in Israel in 1949; in 1958 he and his family emigrated to the United States. He studied at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn and at the State University of New York at Albany. Currently living in Jerusalem, he is considered one of the Israel's foremost realist artists. Hershberg is interested not only in depicting an object's appearance, but also in expressing the interpretative meanings with which it is informed.