The Colour of Joy

Odette’s interest in people, movement, shapes and colours was expressed in her paintings of group, family and street scenes and everyday life. One of Odette’s iconic paintings was shown at the exhibition which opened to critical acclaim. Titled Yom Ha’atzmaut, Jour de liesse, 1998, the painting celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel and depicts a large crowd, dancing and singing in the streets of Jerusalem. When Odette was a student of medicine in Paris, along with a group of Jewish friends, she celebrated the founding of the State of Israel.

The painting is iconic in its celebration of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, established soon after the Holocaust: From despair to hope, from darkness to light.

People were so affected by the painting that they thanked Odette whenever they saw her.

Amongst the other paintings at the exhibition were On the Bus. It was featured in Ha’aretz. In Arts and Crafts Fair, Odette depicts this annual international Jerusalem event, as the sellers’ glassware is displayed in a tent and the walls of the Old City are softly visible in the distance. In Bar Ilan, a street in Jerusalem, the world of the Charedi community is lit up by a warm glow of light. This much loved painting was reproduced in the newspaper Yerushalayim. In The Mirror, the painting on the poster of Odette’s exhibition, the relationship of three friends is perceptible in the reflection of two of the friends back to the viewer.