Lot 31: YOHANAN SIMON

YOHANAN SIMON 1905-1976 SHABBAT ON THE KIBBUTZ signed Yohanan Simon (lower left), signed in Hebrew (lower right) oil on canvas 18 1/8 by 15 1/8 in. 46 by 38.5 cm.

After studying and working in Europe and America, Simon moved to Kibbutz Gan Shmuel in 1936 where he spent the next 17 years. Avram Kampf explains that in his paintings from this period "there is a Kunstwollen, a will to art, which draws on the sources of Israeli experience and creates colours and forms that evoke the desert, heat, and the collective will. He renders the hard and resolute outlook of the heroic days of the kibbutz and reflects the values which this society placed on simplicity of living, hard physical labour, co-operation and mutual help, communal rather than private property, and new forms of leisure, child rearing, education, and culture." (Chagall to Kitaj Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art, London, 1990, p. 118)