Shalom Sebba

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Siegfried Shalom Sebba, ca.1970

Shalom Sebba , also Siegfried Shalom Sebba , actually Siegfried Sebba (born January 14, 1897 in Tilsit ; † February 12, 1975 in Hofheim am Taunus ) was a German and Israeli painter , sculptor and set designer who created the most popular picture in modern Israel and who spent the last years of his life in the artistic circle of Hanna Bekker vom Rath in Hofheim am Taunus.

life and work

Childhood and studies

Sebba lived in the garden of Hanna Bekker vom Rath's Blue House , Kapellenstrasse 11 in Hofheim am Taunus, from 1968 to 1975.

Sebba was born as the youngest son of the banker Jacob Sebba and his wife Maria, geb. Meisel was born and attended the humanistic high school in Königsberg . In 1914, he laid the war Abitur from, volunteered and was in World War I wounded. In 1919 he enrolled at the University of Königsberg to study chemistry and physics , and in 1920 he moved to the Technical University in Gdansk , where he took architecture courses . He then returned to Königsberg, where he studied for several semesters at the Academy of Fine Arts . After completing his studies, he led a life as a freelance artist. In 1923 a series of Memel and Tilsit pictures appeared. He published prints himself, went on a study trip to the Sunda Islands in 1924 and a trip to Finland in 1925 . In 1926, Sebba took part as a draftsman in a Nubia expedition led by Leo Frobenius and then lived in various countries; For example, he spent 1927 on the Baltic Sea and in 1930 traveled to Paris and Algiers . In 1932 he worked at the Landestheater Darmstadt , where he participated in the production of the drama Oedipus by André Gide .

Emigration and Life in Israel

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists in Germany Sebba fled in 1933 from Berlin to Basel , where he had to leave behind all the pictures and graphics. From 1934 to 1935 he lived as a set designer in Stockholm and in 1936 emigrated to Palestine , where he earned his living as a set designer at the Tel Aviv theater , as a portrait photographer , artisan and vegetable grower. During copper work, inhaled acid fumes led to a lung abscess . In 1937 he received the 1st Art Prize from the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem .

From 1943 he returned to painting intensively and in the same year was honored with an exhibition in the Museum of Tel-Aviv, for which he made 63 works available. He then received orders for stage designs, designs for monumental frescoes and for glass windows .

In the years between 1944 and 1945 he returned to painting and designed monumental frescoes and mosaics for public buildings of the new Israeli state. He wrote a paper on graded monochrome , the psychological effect of color and associative symbolic values . In 1947 he wrote The Sheep Shearing , which was purchased by the Tel Aviv Museum and for which he received the Dizengoff Prize in 1952 . This image is considered to be the most popular contemporary image in modern Israel.

Between 1947 and 1958 numerous designs of murals and monumental frescoes on biblical themes were created , some of which were executed. In 1952 he submitted his design for the glass windows of the Weizmann - mausoleum and chose the theme "The 12 tribes of Israel ." In 1955 and 1956 he completed two frescoes in the Technion , the Technical University of Israel in Haifa ; this was followed by an order to make a brick mosaic for the courtyard of the Technion in Haifa . He created his greatest work between 1956 and 1958 when he created a 50 m² mural entitled Brotherhood , which has not been preserved.

In 1961 he was brought into the public eye for the second time through an exhibition in the Museum of Tel Aviv and he published a work on the associative power of colors . Between 1960 and 1963 he created what he called “Element Pictures”, in which he assigned individual objects to a color. He looked for the objects in these pictures, such as bricks or copper , in the Old Testament , but as "a modern person" he also tied personal items such as the " mocha , his elixir of life" or " bed , glasses , telephone , candle and mirror " in the pictures.

Sebba and Hofheim am Taunus

In 1961 Hanna Bekker vom Rath made her first trip to Israel, where she met Sebba. The artist visited Hofheim for the first time in 1963 on the occasion of an exhibition opening with works by Sebba in her Frankfurt art gallery. Further visits followed until Hanna Bekker invited Sebba to return to Germany. In 1967 Sebba married Henriette, w. Chaplain. In the same year, Sebba moved to Germany, also because his poor health no longer permitted permanent residence in Israel, and in 1968 he moved into a small house that Hanna Bekker had built for him in her garden. Sebba lived and worked here until his death in 1975. From 1969, Sebba worked on collages for four years - miniatures that are based on complex themes: for example , they were called matter , night , light , cosmos and things .

Importance of the city of Hofheim am Taunus

His deep affection for Hofheim am Taunus was shown when he made a connection between this place and his “late sun-drenched foliage pictures” and explained that Hanna Bekker's garden looked to him “like a distant memory of the Garden of Eden ”.

The city of Hofheim am Taunus dedicated an exhibition posthumously to its prominent resident in 1983 with paintings, drawings and prints, with a total of 128 of his works being shown.

Works in public collections

Selected solo exhibitions

  • 1945 - Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
  • 1955 - Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
  • 1961 - Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
  • October 6 - November 3, 1963, Oldenburger Kunstverein: Shalom Sebba (exhibited in parallel: works by Louise Stomps )
  • 1983, Hofheim am Taunus City Museum: Shalom Sebba work exhibition
  • 1994 - En Charod Art Museum, Israel
  • 1995 - Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Publications

  • Heinrich Simon, Siegfried Sebba , Ostdeutsche Monatshefte, January 1929, 9th year, n. 10, pp. 773-781
  • Siegfried Shalom Sebba - oil paintings 1944–1963. Catalog. Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Frankfurt am Main 1963
  • Karlheinz Gabler: Siegfried Shalom Sebba - painter and workman. with œuvre index of prints. Thiele and Schwarz publishing house, Kassel 1981, ISBN 3-87816-035-6
  • Sebba - oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints. Catalog. Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Frankfurt am Main 1981
  • Siegfried Shalom Sebba 1897–1975 - paintings, drawings, prints. Kassel 1981
  • Roswitha Kaiser - Siegfried Shalom Sebba: 1897–1975; Work exhibition. Catalog. City Museum Hofheim am Taunus, 1983
  • Fascination Foreign , Museum Giersch, Frankfurt am Main, 2013

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Heinz Till: Hofheimer Biographien. Museum of the City of Hofheim am Taunus, 2008, ISBN 978-3-933735-35-5 .
  2. ^ German biography
  3. The Sheep Shearing (1947), for which he received the Dizengoff Prize in 1952, was purchased by the Tel Aviv Museum and is considered the most popular contemporary image in modern Israel.
  4. a b c d e f Website of the city of Hofheim am Taunus, city museum
  5. a b Karlheinz Gabler, 1981, quoted from the website of the Museum of the City of Hofheim am Taunus