Yosl Bergner, 1920-

1920 - Born in Vienna son of the Yiddish poet, Melech Ravitch.

1937 - Immigrates to Australia where he serves the armed forces.

1948 - Leaves for Paris.

1950 - Immigrates to Israel and settles in Safed and later in Tel-Aviv.

1950-1990 - Participates in numerous exhibitions in Melbourne, Paris, Tel-Aviv New York. Participates in several Venice and Sao-Paulo Biennales.

1983 - He paints still-lives as though to install stabilizers against the turbulence of the dream, and perhaps these stabilizers serve him in time as a touchstone writes the famed Israeli playwright Nissim Aloni. One of Bergners prints The Bride and the Butterfly Hunter served as an inspiration for a play bearing this name by Aloni.

Surrealism has served as a source of inspiration for Bergner, although he does not consider himself a surrealist but, rather, a lover of stories. Indeed narrative elements appear frequently in his work. He uses the displacement element, as the Surrealists did, which detachines the figures, objects or landscapes from the logical context transferring them into a poetical-magical climate.

  • Boy with Dove, Lithograph 1964, $490

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    Hand-signed in Hebrew, dated and numbered in pencil, edition 132/150

    Boy with Dove is a beautiful image dated 1964 in the plate of the print itself by the artist next to his signature. Bergner's favored style with a surrealistic influence creates unique, enigmatic, and striking images.

  • Seated Woman, Lithograph, 1970s, $395

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    Hand-signed in Hebrew and numbered in pencil, edition 2/150 (Cont. …/2)

    (1/….Cont)

    Seated Woman is a romantic and colorful lithograph showing a woman dressed in a reddish-pink gown seated in a chair in an airy field. The tender breeze is waving her curly hair while her big dark eyes gaze at us. These staring eyes, believed to be the windows to the soul, are one of Bergner’s most recognized trademarks.

  • Yoys, Silkscreen, 1970s, $400

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     Hand-signed in Hebrew, dated and numbered in pencil, edition 150

    Toys is a beautiful silkscreen that presents selection of children toys, a horse on wheels, a bird on wheels, a doll, a clown. They all have personified features and a sense of dynamic movement that is intensified by the toys' wheels.  One of Bergner's preoccupations is daily and domestic objects such as pressing-irons, dishes, oil lamps or even toys. His imaginary and fantastic worlds demonstrate a strong influence of the Surrealistic movement.