Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse – price record – Jacob Samuel – Biography

(31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist.known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter.

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, and was raised in the small industrial town of Bohain-en-Vermandois in northern France. His family worked in the grain business. As a young man Matisse worked as a legal clerk and then studied for a law degree in Paris in 1887-89. Returning to a position in a law office in the town of Saint-Quentin, he began taking a drawing class in the mornings before he went to work.

When he was 21, Matisse began painting while recuperating from an illness, and his vocation as an artist was confirmed. In 1891 Matisse moved to Paris for artistic training.

He took instruction from famous, older artists at well-known schools such as the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts which required working from live models and copying the works of Old Masters, but Matisse was also exposed to the recent Post-Impressionist work of Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh while living in Paris.

Matisse began to show his work in large group exhibitions in Paris in the mid-1890s, including the traditional Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and his work received some favorable attention.

Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.

 

Price records

“Cuckoos, blue and pink carpet”

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size 81 cm x 65.5 cm

Hammer price: $41,046,400

“The Odalisque, Harmony Blue” (1937)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size 60.3 cm x 49.5 cm

Hammer price: $30,000,000

” Bouquet for July 14 ” (1919)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size 116 cm x 89.0 cm

Hammer price: $25,500,000

“Portrait in Blue Coat” (1935)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size: 91.3 cm x 59.8 cm

Hammer price: $20,000,000

“Dancer in the Chair, Checkerboard Floor” (1942)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size: 46 cm x 55.0 cm

Hammer price: $19,419,680 

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres – price record – Jacob Samuel – Biography

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres – ( 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassical painter.

Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres’s portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest legacy.

Ingres, was born in Montauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, France, the first of seven children (five of whom survived infancy) of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres (1755-1814) and his wife Anne Moulet (1758-1817). His father was a successful jack-of-all-trades in the arts, a painter of miniatures, sculptor, decorative stonemason, and amateur musician; his mother was the nearly illiterate daughter of a master wigmaker. From his father the young Ingres received early encouragement and instruction in drawing and music, and his first known drawing, a study after an antique cast, was made in 1789. Starting in 1786 he attended the local school, Ecole des Freres de l’Education Chretienne, but his education was disrupted by the turmoil of the French Revolution, and the closing of the school in 1791 marked the end of his conventional education. The deficiency of his schooling would always remain for him a source of insecurity.

In 1791, Joseph Ingres took his son to Toulouse, where the young Jean Auguste Dominique was enrolled in the Academie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture. There he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Jean Briant, and-most importantly-the painter Joseph Roques, who imparted to the young artist his veneration of Raphael. Ingres’s musical talent was further developed under the tutelage of the violinist Lejeune. From the ages of thirteen to sixteen he was second violinist in the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, and he would continue to play the violin as an avocation for the rest of his life.

Don Pedro of Toledo kissing the Sword of Henri IV (1820)

 

Technique: Oil/panel,
Size: 48 cm x 40.0 cm
Hammer price: $826,000

The Virgin with the Crown (1859)

Technique: Oil/panel
Size: 69.9 cm x 50.8 cm
Hammer price: $820,000

The Virgin with the Host (1860)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size: 60 cm x 46.0 cm
Hammer price: $800,000

Aretino and the Envoy of Charles V (1848)

Technique: Oil/canvas
Size: 41.5 cm x 32.5 cm
Hammer price: $599,940

Study for “Sleeper”

 

Technique:Oil/panel
Size:22 cm x 36.5 cm
Hammer price: $482,720

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot – price record – Jacob Samuel – Biography

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (July 17, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape painter and print-maker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.

A pivotal figure in landscape painting, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was an influential and prolific artist, producing over 3,000 works during his lifetime, and inspiring countless numbers of forgeries and copies. Although he was not especially interested or gifted in art at a young age, he decided to make the professional switch from businessman to artist at the age of 26, and in 1821, immediately began with the study of landscapes. He focused on two types of landscapes, historical landscapes, containing ancient and mythological creatures, and realistic landscapes, mostly of Northern Europe, with faithful renditions of flora and fauna, often mixing the two genres together.

In his travels through Italy to study Renaissance paintings, he was entranced by the light of the countryside, which was to influence his color palette throughout his paintings. Although he was also entranced by the Italian women, he wrote that his goal in life was to be committed to painting, and thus he had no time for marriage.

Jewish Algiers, the Italian

Technique: Oil/canvas

Size: 17 5/8 in x 14 3/4 in

Hammer price: $4,200,000

The Italian (c.1870)

Technique: Oil/canvas

Size: 28 3/4 in x 23 1/4 in

Hammer price: $2,600,000

Young Woman At The Fountain

Technique: Oil on canvas                                                                                                               Size: 25 5/8 in x 16 1/2 in                                                                                                           Hammer price: $2,041,620

Boatman from behind trees Shore

Technique: Oil/canvas                                                                                                                Size:39 3/8 in x 32 1/8 in                                                                                                               Hammer price: $1,850,000

Dreamer at the Fountain (c.1860-1870)

Technique: Oil/canvas

Size: 25 3/8 in x 17 3/8 in                                                                                                               Hammer price: $1,450,240

Pierre-Auguste Renoir price record – Jacob Samuel – Biography

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) An innovative artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on February 25, 1841, in Limoges, France. He started out as an apprentice to a porcelain painter and studied drawing in his free time. He was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Imperssionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that “Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”

Renoir’s paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated colour, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of colour, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.

Au Moulin de la Galette  (1876)

Size: 30 3/4 in x 44 7/8 in

Technique: Oil on Canavs

Hammer price: $71,000,000

Dans les roses (Madame Leon Clapisoon) (1882)

Size: Oil/canvas, 39 1/4 in x 32 in

Technique: Oil on canvas

Hammer price: $21,000,000

Baigneuse (1888)

Oil/canvas: 25 5/8 in x 21 1/2 in

Technique: Oil on canvas

Hammer price: $19,000,000

Jeune fille au chat

(No photo available)

 

Size: 38 3/4 in x 32 1/4 in

Technique: Oil on canvas

Hammer price: $16,500,000

La tasse de chocolat (c.1878)

Size: 39 3/8 in x 31 7/8 in

Technique: Oil on canvas

Hammer price: $16,398,690

Hanna Ben Dov Biography – Jacob Samuel

Born in Jerusalem. Father, Ya’akov Ben- Dov, was a famous Israeli photographer who founded the photography department in the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in 1910. 
Hannah herself attended Bezalel during the 40th, and later continued to Camberwell School of Art in London. After the completion of her formal education she moved to Paris, where she exhibited for the first time in 1948 and has been living and working there since, as a part of the local abstract artists school. She took part in the first French Biennale of 1951, which was held in Menton. Her paintings can be found in several collections, including the French State Collection, the Tel- Aviv Museum collection and the Rockefeller collection in New- York.
“In the wide jungle of painting’s salons in Paris, I found, from time to time, a sort of a relaxation spot, a spot that made me want to come closer and look at it, and I always realized, in the same pleasant way you meet a true friend, that these are Hannah Ben Dov’s paintings. This is the way I came to know this painter. In the atmosphere that surrounds the front line of today’s painting bursa, which loud and fast new orientations are in the top of all, as is they are objects of entertainment, and they do not leave the time to absorb, it is very nice to run into artists such as Hannah Ben Dov who lives by her own standard. Near the painting stand, in a work that knows no compromises, these sorts of artists are like a praying religious man.

They practice the values of painting that have no substitutes and no profit. The constant development of Ben Dov, which I have been observing for sometime now, never depended on signs from the outside world, but instead, stood in a front line with it, same line that reveals by the power of a jealous work between the artist and himself– the line of sincerity. It is not difficult to characterize Ben Dov’s work, since she succeeded in understanding the tradition of the French painting. She talks of structure, colors and forms in her paintings. It is typical to a true work of art, which it can not be explain by dismantling, the unity of the work is an unexplained secret, and it is much more valuable then each piece on its own.

The creation of Hannah Ben Dov have matured and reached to a place that doesn’t require any expertise terms. Ever since I came to know her work, I appreciated it as a cultural painting. Now days I look at it as painting that already achieved its spiritual goal, and the viewer only have to watch the painting and enjoy its beauty”.

J. J. Varen. Paris, 1969.

Hanna Ben Dov

Ludwig Blum Biography – Jacob Samuel

Born in Brno, Czech and immigrated to Israel in 1923. In his early childhood he showed artistic talent and his parents sent him to study fine art. His professional education commenced at the state academy in Vienna, followed by studies at the Prague academy with the professor Franz Tiela at 1919. Blum’s service in the Austrian army interrupted his studies for five years during World War one.

The academy was followed by the classical painter’s pilgrimage to Holland, France and Spain. He was always a sportsman and an enthusiastic Zionist therefore he was one of the founders of the “Macabi” Jewish Sport Organization. In 1923, he settled down in Palestine and ultimately in Jerusalem. In the first few years of his life in Palestine he traveled a lot to the neighbour countries to explore it and to describe it in his paintings. He painted the portraits of many important men from the region, including the portrait of king Abdalla the first, of the kingdom of Jordan.

Blum exhibited frequently, both in Israel and abroad. In 1936, one of his paintings- “Jerusalem” received special mention in the Royal Academy. Blum was one of the notorious artists of what was known as the “German School” in Jerusalem. The German School was mainly influenced from the Expressionism movement, although he has stayed at London during 1938 pre world war 2 with his family in the purpose of displaying his works in various exhibitions. Jerusalem Jewish’s expressionism was by far milder then the European. During the Israeli independence war in 1948, Blum and his wife stayed in Jerusalem and in spite of their age they insisted on joining the civil forces and help the “Hagana” Jewish military.

This decision descanted from a private tragedy that happened to the couple when their youngest son Eli was killed in 1946 in the A- Ziv battle during his service in the Palmach (Jewish resistance force). The drawings from the period of the war are part of the permanent exhibition in “Beit HaPalmach”, where you can also find a portrait of Moshe Dayan he painted, which is signed by him and the first Israeli prime minister David Ben- Gurion. This portrait was given to Dayan on his birthday.).

In 1949 Blum was one of the initiators of the foundation of the first Israeli artists house in Jerusalem. In 1968 he received the honorary reward of “Yakir Yerushalayim” for his artistic tribute to the city of Jerusalem. In the opening of one of his exhibition, the mayor of Jerusalem Tedi Kolek said: “Blum’s paintings had helped our Jewish brothers abroad feel closer to us, Israeli Jews, better then any other messenger”. Blum’s works are found in museums and private collections around the world. They increase in value and are much sought after by collectors. He died in Jerusalem in 1974.

Avraham Melnikov Biography – Jacob Samuel

Born in 1892 in Basarabia, Romania. His parents send him to study medicine in 1909 and during this period he took some evening courses in the Art Academy near by. As he decided to dedicate his life to the fine arts, his parents stopped they financial support in him and he moved to live with his brother in Chicago, USA.

In 1919 he arrived to Palestine via Egypt and volunteered to serve in the British Hebrew Troops. Soon enough he left his military service and begun his involvement in the field of art in Palestine. Melnikov was embraced by the British govern of that time- Sir Ronald Storrs, who gave him a workshop to work in above the Shkhem gate in the old city of Jerusalem. In 1922, the first Hebrew artist’s guild was founded by Boris Schatz and Melnikov, with Schatz as it chairman and Melnikov as his second.
During the years 1921-1928 Melnikov participated in every group exhibition held in the guild’s gallery in the tower of David in Jerusalem. In 1928, he managed to get a financial support from Lord Melchett (Sir Alfred Mond) in order to build a monument in the memory of the Hebrew worriers who died in the battle of Tel Chai in 1920. Melnikov finished his monumental statue only in 1934 due to difficulties dealing with the size of the rock he carved and due to the high costs of building the statue- costs higher then the amount he received from Lord Melchett.

Two days after finishing this statue, he went to England, were he stayed for the next 25 years. During his stay in England he established a name for himself as a portraits painter. He painted the portraits of Sir Winston Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Toscanini and many others. In 1940, during the blitz attack on London his studio was bombed and he lost a great amount of his artwork. He returned to Israel in 1959 and died soon after- in1960. He was buried next to his wife on the foot of his great statue of the “crying lion” in Tel Chai. His poor fortune continued after his death as most of his works were either destroyed or vanished.

In 1982, the art gallery in the University of Haife in Israel held a retrospective exhibition and presented the remnants of his art. The statue of the “crying lion” is perceived as an Israeli national symbol. Another important statue of Melnikov is “awaken Judas” which is located in the Ramat Gan national park in Israel. Melnikov statues have a unique signature and they reflect the influence of the ancient middle -eastern cultures on Melnikov’s body of work.

 

Avraham Melnikov

 

Leo Arie Flatau Biography – Jacob Samuel

Barren hills. Thorn and briar. Rocky ground strewn with clay stones of fantastic shapes as if each had come from Henry Moore’s studio—these are the Mountains of Menashe.

To these hills, and to a group of young people from Latin America, who had just established their Kibutz, Ramot Menashe, Leo Flatau Came in 1949. Leo was born in Santiago, Chile. Before immigrating to Israel, he studied painting for a while in his hometown, with Gregorio de La Fuente, and then in Israel, with Mrcel Janco and Zvi Mairovitch.

How to classify such work?” For it is, simply and exclusively, “Leo”. The artist, in every work of his, travels back and for the between two worlds that are, in the end, very homogeneous and very personal.

The “fantastic” perception comes into play into play in his ceramic sculptures. Leo’s ability to see the empty space inside and around the sculpture is highly developed and results in solutions of great strength and perceptible expression. The torn and broken rocks widespread in the Mountains of Menasha—perhaps they are echoed in these sculptures.

Leo Flatau is an artist blessed with rare, multifaceted talent. There is no public building in his kibbutz without a monumental or ornamental work of his. He experiences intensely all that within his house, his society and his kibbutz, and finds for them all a playful portrayal in many hundreds of creative works. From time to time, Leo also turns his hand to set design for the stage, with that same flight of fruitful imagination that characterizes the entire opus of his work.

Ennio Finzi Biography – Jacob Samuel

Ennio Finzi was born in Venice in 1931 and as a young man became interested in painting and music. After attending courses for a brief period at the Institute of Art in Venice, he became attracted to the discovery of cubist structural disarrangement, which allowed him to transcend the representation of given reality.

 

After the 1948 Biennale, the Historic Archives of the Contemporary Arts in Venice reopened, offering Finzi the chance to dedicate himself to the study of masters of avant-garde movements in history. Meeting Atanasio Soldati, who spent a period of time in Venice, stimulated Finzi and probably influenced subsequent works characte­rised by bright chromatics and rigo­rous formal symmetry.

 

In this way Finzi’s first “inventions” were born ­rhythm, colour, light and tone became fundamental elements and formed the basis of his research. In that period Virgilio Guidi and the ideological strength of his creative thought, and Emilio Vedova, with his strong brush­strokes that attacked the surface, also exerted a strong influence on Finzi. The discovery of dodecaphonic music led Finzi to seize the principle of “dis­sonance”. Then suddenly, in the same way, the praxis of colour dissolved of any shading and having the exclusive function of tone opened new and wide horizons.

 

From that moment until the late 1950s his work became an obsessi­ve search for the semantics of brush­stroke, light and tone. The colour­sound relationship, a colour that Finzi loved to “listen to” more than “to see” in its most intimate resonance, allowed him to express himself freely under different and altogether aleatory rules.

At the end of the 1950s (years marked by the remarkable insight of Lucio Fontana, whom Finzi met in Milan on the occasion of the artist’s exhibi­tion at the Apollinaire Gallery) the gestured turbulence and expressive urgency of Finzi’s work became calm and expressed a more reflective dimen­sion.

 

It was the path of superseding painting itself and moving closer to gestalt theories on the phenomenology of perception. Up until 1978 the prin­ciples of optical art informed his research on optical effects, due to the phenomenon of the retinal conserva­tion of images. After a short crisis fol­lowing an exhaustion of interest in the principles of structural visuality, Finzi with renewed energy and enthusiasm in 1980 yielded to the rediscovery of the immediacy of painting.

Once again he began exploring fascinating themes relating to colour, and went beyond the dissonance of the 1950s. Painting again became the dominant space with colour and non-colour, light and shade successively alternating and competing on the surface of the work. Black was used as the light of the dark, of emptiness, of silence, and led him to probe the most secret reso­nance of non-existence in the invisibi­lity of painting itself In the conti­nuing dialectics that counter-distin­guishes the principle of his research, Finzi proceeds in successive stages of development characterised by greater chromatic sumptuousness and sudden elimination of luminosity in which energy is concentrated in a potential state.

 

This incessant questioning of working style makes him foreign to any preconceived stylistic form and gives him the professional label of “non-style”: Through the experience of experience, Finzi continually follows the dream of surprise in painting with a stress on constant regeneration and catharsis.

In more recent years he retakes connotations that are rooted in painting and colour, but these connotations are no longer inhibited by ideologically closed regimes; the artist retakes with an abandon that is completely open and available to the totality of feeling which is painting.