Avigdor Arikha

Avigdor Arikha (1929 – 2010), born in Romania to a German Jewish family, was a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and art historian, known for working only in natural light and for producing each of his works in a single day.

In 1941 Arikha and his family were deported to a Transnistrian concentration camp, where his father died. There he drew sketches on scraps of paper, depicting the horrors of the holocaust. These were shown to delegates of the Red Cross, who facilitated his and his sister’s escape. In 1944, at the age of fifteen, Arikha moved to the British Mandate of Palestine. Schooled in Jerusalem mostly by Bauhaus teachers who had escaped Germany, Arikha adopted a modernist approach, mastering multiple skills and mediums in line with Bauhaus principles.

In 1949 Arikha moved to study in Paris, making the city his permanent home in 1954. After establishing himself as an illustrator, Arikha made abstract paintings until 1965. A period then followed, until 1973 during which the artist restricted himself to drawing and etching, making a series of portraits of his friend, the playwright Samuel Beckett. When he began painting again, Arikha worked exclusively from life, painting quickly and straight onto the canvas using oil paints.

Arikha's work is held in public collections worldwide including National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK; British Museum, London, UK; Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, IT; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, US; Musée du Louvre, Paris, FR.