Zahara Shatz – A Retrospective 2006

The Third Exhibition in the Schatz House Series, celebrating 100 Years of Israeli Art

A retrospective review of Zahara Schatz’s (1916-1999) art, most of which was created in the United States and in Jerusalem, confronts the viewer with a highly versatile artist who engaged in diverse media; an artist who refused to distinguish between art and craft, remaining persistently loyal to the dualism she inherited from her father, Prof. Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel School of Arts an Crafts, Jerusalem.

The early linocuts she created in the late 1930s, portraying landscapes and figures, oscillate between realism and surreal expressionism; these were followed by surreal and semi-abstract oil paintings, created in California in the early 1940s.
Zahara Schatz’s later etchings were influenced by Cuban Surrealist Wilfredo Lam, and they respond to the Holocaust of Europe’s Jews in their heaping of bony corpses. At that stage, still in the US, Zahara Schatz discovered the material and aesthetic possibilities inherent in Plexiglas, and developed a language of abstract assemblages based on wire and metal cutouts pressed between Plexiglas plates, some embedded with dried leaves as well. These served the artist not only for the creation of free art, but also for utilitarian objects and jewelry, as well as for the design of decorative partitions. All of these – “hamsa” good luck charms, bowls, bracelets, etc. – were created as part of Zahara’s activity in the Jerusalem-based Yad group of the Schatz family (Zahara, her brother Bezalel, and his wife Louise).
The combination of Plexiglas and metal led to the creation of abstract mobiles, which owe much to Alexander Calder; Zahara’s uniqueness lay in the materials, a singularity for which she was awarded the Israel Prize in 1955. This, however, does not yet exhaust the versatility of this artist (who resided in Jerusalem from 1978 until her passing). She designed book covers, cutlery, textiles, and lamps (a lamp of her design won a prize on behalf of the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1951, and the six-branched brass candelabrum she designed in 1960 received the Yad Vashem Award, and later became the institution’s official symbol).
One can hardly conceive of a visual medium that Zahara Schatz has not practiced. In 1991 she received the Ish-Shalom Prize for her life’s work and in 1993 she was named an Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem by the city’s Municipality.

Gidon Ofrat, Curator

This Exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog, the second in the three books series that overages the artistic activity of the second generation to the house of Shatz.