Michael Gross: Recent Works
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Opening February 26, 2002
Born in Tiberias in 1920 as a sixth generation sabra, Michael Gross has emerged as one of Israel's leading painters and sculptors, his achievements culminating in his receipt of the Israel Prize for Sculpture in 2002. Gross's art expresses close identification with the geographical and biographical landscape of his childhood, responding to the hot climate and vistas of the Galilee and Jerusalem.
The exhibition includes over 25 paintings and two sculptures, drawn from the Museum's collections and from private sources, the majority of which have been created in the past ten years. A few of his earlier works will also be featured to allow for comparative study of his later works. The range of work spans from a 1949 sculpture of his mother, through to a painting completed in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States.
The tragedy of pain and loss are repeated themes in Gross's work. Over the years, he returned often to portraits of his late father, who in 1939 was stabbed to death by Arabs at his farm near the Sea of Galilee. This traumatic event left a permanent mark on Gross and provided the initial stimulus for his painting.
Michael Gross's desire to preserve and immortalize reflects both a representational and expressionist approach: the desire to capture a particular moment in reality together with a particular emotional state. The interplay of expression and representation lies at the heart of Gross's works, which are characterized by an unresolved tension between heroism and lyricism, asceticism and sensuality, loneliness and intimacy. Gross's paintings demand full concentration, as the viewer strives to decipher the enigmatic truth of a work and to understand its essence.
The exhibition, curated by Yigal Zalmona, Chief Curator-at-Large.
It is on view in the Ayala Zacks Abramov Pavilion for Israel Art, accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.
ISRAEL MUSEUM, JERUSALEM
