Ilana Shenhav

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Ilana Shenhav with a self-portrait

Ilana Shenhav (born June 27, 1931 in Mährisch-Ostrau ( ČSR ), † June 6, 1986 in Mannheim ) was an artist.

life and work

At the age of eleven, Ilana Shenhav was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp , where she was mistreated and beaten. The prisoners' self-administration carried out secret school lessons and it was there that they received their first drawing lessons from the also imprisoned artists Max Lederer and Friedl Dicker-Brandeis , a student of Johannes Itten . According to contemporary witnesses, Shenhav and her mother escaped the concentration camp through an " exchange deal " that the former Swiss President Jean-Marie Musy agreed with Heinrich Himmler in October / November 1944 for money. Of several planned “ransom”, there was only one transport (beginning of February 1945) to Switzerland .

In 1949 Shenhav went to Israel . After training and working as a primary school and English teacher, she attended the art teacher seminar in Tel Aviv between 1958 and 1960 and worked as an art teacher from 1961 to 1964. From 1965 to 1968 she attended the Art School in Tel Aviv, where she taught from 1968 to 1970. At the same time, Shenhav intensified his own artistic activity and was able to realize his first individual exhibitions in Tel Aviv.

In 1970 she moved to Munich, Germany, and came to Mannheim in 1971 . Numerous other individual and group exhibitions followed, especially in Mannheim. She was a member of the Professional Association of Visual Artists , GEDOK and the Künstlergruppe '79 eV, Heidelberg.

In 1986 Ilana Shenhav died in Mannheim.

style

Artistically, Ilana Shenhav began with drawing , which was also her preferred form of expression for years. Her drawings often consisted of a single line:

“[The technique of drawing] is inherent in a strict, secure line, the“ firmness ”of which is actually an expression and characteristic of technical-constructive drawing. This very line became the opposite in [Ilana Shenhav]. Swelling out of the vegetative, growing rampant, it often ended in hands and faces. They are beings between shadow and chimera , without bones, helplessly seeking support: shadows of a past of horror and an oppressed present. "

- Eberhard Thieme

Only in the later years did she turn to painting . Stylistically, her works range from figurative to classical Informel in her drawings, gouaches and collages as well as in her paintings .

She crossed the border between the two areas: Structures can be discovered in a number of her informal works that almost inspire figurative associations. Three aspects are essential here: Your realistically designed portraits are characterized - that was also their credo - by "absolute honesty", i.e. regardless of the feelings of the portrayed. In her collages and paintings, on the other hand, she played through informal compositions in often warm tones with astonishing ease: in orange, yellow, ocher and sienna with occasional additions of complementary blue-green. Cooler shades such as blue or black are less common, but every now and then an intense, sometimes even aggressive red. On the other hand, Shenhav's leaves are completely different in a mixture of gouache and watercolor : The colors of the gray scale preferred in these works ( grisaille ) dissolve into very finely structured amorphous structures.

Shenhav cultivated a distinctly individual style throughout her artistic creation, which makes her work recognizable at all times:

“Sometimes you are surprised (or overwhelmed) by so much darkness and light, this ambiguity of inner perception. Some are fiery, others restrained. Much is magical. Some things are ugly (in the most glorious sense: ugly - and simply stunningly beautiful). "

- Siegfried Einstein : In a letter, March 1983

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1963–68: Four exhibitions in Israel (including Galerie Dugith, Tel Aviv)
  • 1969: Museum Elath, Israel
  • 1971: "We live from peace", Selm / Lüdinghausen district
  • 1975: Galerie OG Zimmermann, Mannheim
  • 1978: Masonic Lodge Mannheim
  • 1979: Werkkunstgalerie, Mannheim
  • 1981: "Artists see Mannheim", Mannheim
  • 1981: Art u. Heissler auction house, Bobenheim / Berg
  • 1981/82: Galerie Weng, Mannheim
  • 1983: GEDOK Mannheim
  • 1983: Mundenheim workshop gallery, Ludwigshafen
  • 1984: Man in Violence, exchange exhibition, Toulon
  • 1984: Gallery in the "Klapsmühl", Mannheim

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Antje Böttger: Ilana Shenhav . In: Women's Commissioner of the City of Mannheim (Ed.): City without women? Women in the history of Mannheim (=  women in the history of Mannheim . No. 1 ). Ed. Quadrat, Mannheim 1993, ISBN 978-3-923003-61-7 , pp. 42-44 .
  2. ^ A b Jochen Kronjäger, Silvia Köhler: Ilana Shenhav. Artist bequests from Mannheim, accessed on April 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Eberhard Thieme: Ilana Shenhav. In search of man . Quadrates-Buchhandlung, Mannheim 1984, ISBN 3-924704-03-1 (illustrated book, 43 sheets).
  4. ↑ Siegfried Einstein: My love has gone blind: Poems . With 15 drawings by Ilana Shenhav. Quadrate bookstore, Mannheim 1984.
personal data
SURNAME Shenhav, Ilana
BRIEF DESCRIPTION artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Moravian-Ostrava
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1986
Place of death Mannheim