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Description: signed in English and Hebrew

oil on canvas

Condition Note: canvas is unlined and in good condition, picture surface has some lifting and associated pigment losses in sections along the top, and a small spot of pigment loss lower center

painted circa 1948

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Dimensions: 23 5/8 by 31 5/8 in.

60 by 80.5 cm.

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Provenance: PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION

Beneth Gallery, Tel Aviv

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Notes: Janco returned repeatedly to compositions incorporating military motifs after the War of Independence of 1948. Avram Kampf discusses this aspect of his work: "A painter of armed partisans, Maccabees fighting for their existence, wounded soldiers bending over their rifles, Janco did not glorify war. Rather he saw it as part of the reality which surrounded him and which he could not ignore." (Avram Kampf, Chagall to Kitaj, Jewish Experiencee in 20^th Century Art, London, 1990, page 118).

During the period this work was painted, Janco was a part of the New Horizons group which sought a new lyrical abstract language in Israeli art. True to these ideals, we can see here how Marcel Janco depicted symbolic, expressionist paintings of Israeli soldiers with bold, dynamic lines, distorted forms and abstract applications of colors