{"id":11441,"date":"2011-04-02T22:11:24","date_gmt":"2011-04-03T05:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=11441"},"modified":"2011-04-16T04:05:28","modified_gmt":"2011-04-16T11:05:28","slug":"mane-katz-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=11441","title":{"rendered":"MAN\u00c9-KATZ REVISITED"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Partial view of Museum interior showing Three Rabbis, ca 1955, oil on canvas; and in the far gallery: Ukrainian Village, 1933, oil on canvas <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Man\u00e9-Katz Museum, a historical gem sited on Mount Carmel, has reopened its doors after a two-year period set aside for repairs and refurbishment. Once managed by a non- profit-making society, now integrated into the complex of Haifa’s Museums, it has been brought to life again, with a new staff headed by Svetlana Reingold, and an impressive inaugural exhibition The Jewish Heritage of Man\u00e9 Katz<\/em>, guest-curated by Irit Miller.<\/p>\n

40 works are on view, mostly paintings, but also drawings and a few small bronzes. This selection is only a small part of the Museum’s extensive holdings that includes flower studies, portraits, landscapes, small figure sculptures, as well as the artist’s collection of Judaica. But the focus here is on Man\u00e9-Katz’ true life work: paintings based on his memories of Jewish life in the shtetl<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Born 1894 in the Ukrainian township of Kremenchug, Man\u00e9-Katz was raised in a family steeped in Hassidic traditions, attending Yeshiva before studying at the Vilna School of Arts.\u00a0 In 1913, he came to live and work in Paris, the city where he would spend most of his creative years.\u00a0 A prominent member of the Jewish School of Paris \u2013comprising scores of artists from Central and Eastern Europe drawn in the first quarter of the 20th century to this hub of artistic life\u2013 he and Chagall were, surprisingly enough, almost alone in their desire to portray Jewish subject-matter.<\/p>\n

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Two boys with scrolls of the law, ca. 1950s or 1960s, oil on canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the paintings of figures and scenes in the entrance and side galleries reveal, Man\u00e9- Katz’s viewpoint is somber and melancholy, contrasting sharply with the whimsical charm of Chagall’s folkloric renderings of Vitebsk. In Man\u00e9-Katz’s world, the grave figures of Rabbis and scholars appear on a shadowy, timeless stage, their forms described in thick brushstrokes and a dark palette, with bursts of vivid color \u2013 oranges, pinks and greens – illuminating a torah scroll, or a gown.<\/p>\n

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The Wedding, ca. 1935, oil on board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A\u00a0sense of isolation pervades\u00a0 many works. As, for instance, in the joyless depiction of a wedding where the musicians and even the bride and groom are partitioned off from each other.\u00a0 The impression given here, as in so many of these paintings, is of a religious community on the cusp of vanishing. It is interesting to note that in 1940, five years after this work was painted, the German Jewish historian Leon Feuchtwanger prophesied that “the painter Man\u00e9-Katz has given to the ghetto an expression that will outlive the ghetto itself.”<\/p>\n

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The Slaughter (And Now, Are ye brothers?), 1942, oil on canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Featured in the Museum’s long gallery are examples of the highly emotional paintings that Man\u00e9-Katz produced in reaction to news of the Holocaust. Among them is the unsympathetic picture The Slaughter<\/em>, where the central image is the Christian Jesus, identified by skullcap on his head and the cruciform structure of this composition. Depicted in the torturously elongated style of Spanish painter El Greco, this figure extends his arms over twisted bodies sprawled on the ground.\u00a0 Conveying an equal anguish, are his ink drawings of distorted faces and figures that he produced in 1954 to illustrate Itzhak Katzenelson’s Song of the Murdered Jewish People.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Am Israel Hai (The Jewish Nation Lives), 1938, oil on canvas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Man\u00e9-Katz’s portrayals of life in pre-state Eretz Israel are in a quite different vein. Sentimental works in a range of exotic colors, they do not express reality – the hardship and struggles of a people fighting for their existence. In fact, the naivety of his approach, particularly evident in the canvas Am Israel Hai <\/em>(Israel Lives On) evokes a certain hilarity today.\u00a0 Painted in 1938, it shows (on the viewer’s right) a group of sturdy pioneers.\u00a0 One holds a basket of oranges aloft, another a hoe or spade.\u00a0 A third figure wields a flag. In their midst is a bare-breasted maiden whose image appears to have been lifted from Delacroix’s painting Liberty leading the People<\/em>. To the left, three Hassids in brilliantly colored garments, walk off in an opposite direction, seemingly averting their eyes from the charms of this buxom lady. At center-front, a child shades her eyes which are turned towards some distant vision.<\/p>\n

One may wonder about the connection between Man\u00e9-Katz, the city of Haifa and a museum in his name. Here, in brief, is the story.\u00a0 From 1928 onwards the artist visited Eretz Israel many times; in particular showing his loyalty to the country in 1948, when, at the height of the War of Independence, he not only refused to cancel an exhibition of his works at the Tel Aviv Museum but shipped over 60 canvases, and came to the opening. In 1958 at the age of 64 he settled in Haifa, bequeathing his estate and the contents of his Paris home to this city on the understanding that the house and studio on Mount Carmel endowed to him by the Municipality would on his death be converted into a Museum.\u00a0 It is now truly satisfying to know, some 50 years after this promise was given, that the Museum is not only going strong but set to expand its activities by presenting “a picture of the world of culture and expression” as related to the life and times of Man\u00e9-Katz.<\/p>\n

Man\u00e9-Katz: The Jewish Heritage <\/em>opens on April 9th at 8.00 pm. It will remain on exhibit until the end of September.<\/p>\n

Man\u00e9-Katz Museum, 89 Yafe Nof, Haifa. Tel. 04-8383482<\/p>\n

ANGELA LEVINE<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Man\u00e9-Katz Museum, a historical gem sited on Mount Carmel, has reopened its doors after a two-year period set aside for repairs and refurbishment. Once managed by a non- profit-making society, now integrated into the complex of Haifa’s Museums, it has been brought to life again, with a new staff headed by Svetlana Reingold, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}