Naftali bezem
Naftali Bezem ( Hebrew נפתלי בזם; * November 27, 1924 as Leo Weltz in Essen / Ruhr; † October 2, 2018 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli painter and sculptor .
Life
Bezem was born in Essen (Ruhr) in 1924 as the youngest son of the last sexton of the synagogue there before it was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938 . His parents were Polish citizens of the Jewish faith. At the end of October 1938, Bezem and his family were deported to Bentschen on the German-Polish border as part of the Poland campaign and interned at the Zbąszynek train station . Even before the German invasion of Poland , Naftali Bezem was able to leave Poland with the help of the Kinder- und Jugend-Alijah , founded in 1932 as an amalgamation of various organizations , which, in conjunction with the Prussian Regional Association of Jewish Communities, was responsible for selecting and preparing 13 to 17-year-olds for emigration to Palestine . His parents, who last saw Naftali Bezem in 1939, were murdered in the Holocaust organized under the German occupation .
From 1943 to 1946 he studied at the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem , among others with the teacher and artist Mordechai Ardon , who had been a student of Johannes Itten and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau under the name Max Bronstein . As a 23-year-old Ardon's master class student, Bezem gave art lessons to Jewish emigrants. This was followed by a three-year study visit to Paris .
My story doesn't let me go , so Bezem occasionally commented on his artistic work. Image metaphors return again and again: parents at the Sabbath table , burning candlesticks , the rooster as the “loud victim” and the fish as the “quiet victim”, the ladder for homecoming and ascent, the boat of those fleeing. - Probably his most famous works are the wall relief in the state memorial in Jerusalem in memory of the murdered Jews of Europe during the Shoah, as well as the ceiling design of the reception hall of the residence of the Israeli President.
“FACING A SKETCH OF NAFTALI BEZEM // sing loudly the thrushes death is still fresh / silence is already extinguished bleu dieu ciel farewell gives / commemoration breaks in two candlesticks / torches sem the fish // are served look and scream and think / of the according to the light bright no meaning nothing is silent / quieted my sem at random / are life and death // one and the same / in memory and hope / time of testimony "
Works / exhibitions (selection)
- 1954: Participation in Venice / Biennale
- 1956: Tel Aviv / solo exhibition
- 1959: Brussels / World Exhibition, Israel Pavilion
- 1959: Jerusalem / Bezalel Museum, exhibition
- 1960: Participation in Venice / Biennale
- 1969: Sao Paulo (Brazil) / Participation in the Biennale
- 1970: Jerusalem / Wall relief in the entrance hall of the Memorial to the Victims of Nazi Terror in Europe Yad Vashem and the decoration of the ceiling of the reception hall of the residence of the Israeli President
- 1976: Paris / solo exhibition
- 1977: Boston and Philadelphia / solo exhibitions
- 1978: New York / solo exhibition
- 1979: Tel Aviv / solo exhibition
- 1980: Jerusalem / solo exhibition
- 1981: Duisburg / glass window ("memorial window") in the Salvatorkirche
- 1982, 1984, 1989: Tel Aviv / Solo exhibitions
- 1991: Debbs-Ferry (Hudson-River, USA) / Stained glass window in the synagogue
- 1992: Essen / Solo exhibition by Museum Folkwang in the Old Synagogue Essen
- 2013: Tel Aviv, Museum of Art / solo exhibition
Honors
- 1957: Dizengoff Prize for Picture In the Courtyard of the Second Temple
- 1973: Awards for his publication of reproduction volumes at the Jerusalem Book Fair
Literature / publications (selection)
- Naftali Bezem, Laments - Drawings , 1962
- Kind Israel. 26 painters and sculptors. Exhibition. With works by Morcedai Ardon, N. Bezem (Essen), I. Danziger (Berlin), M. Gross, S. Haber, Anna Ticho (Vienna), Y. Tumarkin (Dresden) a. a .; New York / Museum of Modern Art, 1964
- Naftali Bezem, The Last Shabbat (1980), 10-color screen print, exclusively donated by the artist, a son of the last sexton of the Essen synagogue, which was destroyed during the pogrom in 1938, in: The synagogue in Essen. = Facsimile print of Edmund Körner's book Die Neue Synagoge Essen Ruhr , published in Berlin in 1914 . With text by Richard Klapheck. (13th special edition of the architecture of the 20th century as a limited license edition of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation eV), Essen (1980); enclosed is the 10-color silkscreen print The Last Shabbat (1980) by Naftali Bezem, a son of the last sexton of the Essen synagogue, as a supplement donated exclusively by the artist.
- Naftali Bezem , Jerusalem, Debel Gallery , Ein Kerem , 1980
- The Passover Haggadah. Illustrated by Naftali Bezem (MM Ben-Dov: Caligraphy); Tel Aviv, 1982.
- NAFTALI BEZEM. An exhibition of the Folkwang Museum in the Old Synagogue Essen 21 February-5. April 1992 , ed. v. Museum Folkwang Essen (editor Dr. Gerhard Finckh ), Essen 1992; with the articles Everyday Synagogue and Hoffnungsstrasse. Memories of Essen in the 1930s by Michael Zimmermann , Naftali Bezem - an Israeli artist by Edna Brocke , Whom does your own story dismiss? by Matthias Kohn and Naftali Bezem by Gerhard Finckh.
- Matthias Kohn , Naftali Bezem (with artist drawing ); Bern, 1998; ISBN 978-3-7165-1140-4 (formerly: 3716511404).
- Open Museum, Naftali Bezem - Rope Ladder 1996–1999 ; Open Museum, 2000.
- Christoph Meckel , Naftali Bezem, the painter ; in: sense and form. Contributions to literature , ISBN 978-3-943297-12-6 , 3/2013, pp. 325–329
Web links
- Literature by and about Naftali Bezem in the catalog of the German National Library
- "Naftali Bezem, the painter" by Christoph Meckel, in: "Sinn und Form", 3/2013 (reading sample)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Haaretz obituary ( Hebrew ), accessed January 13, 2019
- ↑ See in particular the publication NAFTALI BEZEM. An exhibition of the Folkwang Museum in the Old Synagogue Essen 21 February-5. April 1992 , ed. v. Museum Folkwang Essen (editor Dr. Gerhard Finckh ), Essen 1992; with the articles Everyday Synagogue and Hoffnungsstrasse. Memories of Essen in the 1930s by Michael Zimmermann, Naftali Bezem - an Israeli artist by Edna Brocke , Whom does your own story dismiss? by Matthias Kohn and Naftali Bezem by Gerhard Finckh.
- ↑ See also: History and Fate of the Jews in Essen. Memorial book , ed. from the city of Essen, 1980; therein: Dr. Hermann Schröter, Naftali Bezem, an artist from Essen (p. 129–132) and Weltz-Bezem, Naphtali (Leo) (p. 764f.)
- ↑ See NAFTALI BEZEM (Essen 1992), p. 40
- ↑ See: Gerd Hergen Lübben , YDBY | ZEIT NÄCHTE ZU WACHEN. Gedichte (1993), p. 39, "Cante jondo" in FEUERFUSS MEINETWEGEN OR THE ZEBATTU PENTADE. Five pieces (1993), p. 160 and 1.1 »Semaphorism« │In view of a sketch by Naftali Bezem in VERSIONS I (2014, ISBN 978-3-95577-773-9 )
- ↑ See website of the Hamborn secondary school on the Salvatorkirche with the “memorial window” ( memento from June 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) by Naftali Bezem, which is dedicated to the 1938 November pogrom in Duisburg
- ↑ See also the website of the Evangelical Church in Duisburg on the Salvatorkirche with the "memorial window" ( memento of the original from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 483 kB) by Naftali Bezem
- ↑ Cf. Angela Levine, Naftali Bezem - Art with an Agenda ; in: Midnight East , an online magazine dedicated to obsessive involvement with the Israeli cultural scene (an insider's perspective on Israeli culture), January 8, 2013
- ↑ See website "Dizengoff Prize"
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bezem, Naftali |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Weltz, Leo (maiden name); נפתלי בזם (Hebrew) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli painter and sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 27, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Essen , Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 2, 2018 |
| Place of death | Tel Aviv |