Larry Abramson
Larry Abramson (* 1954 in South Africa ) is an Israeli artist.
life and work
Larry Abramson was born in South Africa in 1954. In 1961 his family emigrated to Israel and lived in Jerusalem . In 1970 he was one of the signatories of a letter from conscientious objectors protesting against the occupation of Gaza. In 1973 Abramson studied art at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London . On his return to Israel he took a job as printer and exhibition curator at the Jerusalem Print Workshop , where he stayed from 1975 to 1986.
His first solo exhibition was in 1975. His work in the 1980s dealt with various symbols of modernist European art, particularly the “black square” by Kasimiar Malewitsch . He used it to create dynamic situations using simplification and a figurative style of drawing.
From 1993 to 1994 Abramson created the series "Tsuba", which he exhibited in the Kibbutz Gallery. The series consisted of 38 nature paintings (oil on canvas), 38 prints of nature drawings, and still lifes based on examples of plants.
These series are related to archaeological ruins near Kibbutz Tzova , a place that had been drawn a decade earlier by the artist Joseph Zaritsky (under the name "Tsuba"). While Zaritsky ignored the Arab ruins on site and leveled the space for it, Abramson painted the view realistically. By including the ruins of the Arab village, he essentially criticized the Israeli position, which seeks to obliterate the Arab identity of the conquered area.
In 1984 Abramson became a lecturer in the arts department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. In 1992 he was appointed head of the department and head of the Bezalel program for young artists (the master’s program).
For the academic year 2002/2003 he was visiting professor at the San Francisco Art Institute . At the same time he began to set up the art department at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan .
In May 2002, Abramson published an article in Studio magazine entitled We're all Felix Nussbaum . In it, he addressed the problematic nature of creating historical paintings in the post-Holocaust era. In 2004 there was an exhibition of his works under the title "Piles", including some charcoal drawings of mountains of rubble. They were related to ruins in art and the portrait of the German-Jewish painter Felix Nussbaum . This series was shown among others in the Felix Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück .
In 2007 Abramson exhibited paintings at the Gordon Gallery in Tel Aviv.
Awards (selection)
- 1979 The Beatrice S. Kolliner Award for a Young Israeli Artis t ( Israel Museum , Jerusalem)
- 1993 Sharet Award for Culture and Art, Ministry of Culture of Israel
Web links
- Larry Abramson in the collections of the Israel Museum
- Larry Abramson from the Israeli artist list of the Information Center for Israeli Art at the Israel Museum
- Europeana - Abramson, Larry
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abramson, Larry |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | South Africa |