Collection: Rosenthalis Moshe

Moshe Rosenthalis was born in Marimpol, Lithuania, in 1922, and studied art at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts. As a young man, he was constrained by the social realism of the post-World War I Soviet Union. His experiences as a soldier and illustrator for Red Army propaganda posters during World War II had a great influence on his career. It was in this authoritarian atmosphere that he developed as an art student at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts. In 1951 he won first prize at an exhibition of Lithuanian painting held at the Tretyakov Museum in Moscow, which acquired four of his works. Rosenthalis emigrated to Israel in 1958, where he devoted himself to teaching and painting. His worldview and his own art were forever transformed. He was exposed to the bright light and local colors of his adopted country, as well as to new styles of Western painting. He began to work in a more abstract and expressive style. Rosenthalis explains: "To simplify forms, one must work harder, search, use the imagination, and involve one's intellect and emotions." A master of color, he transformed shapes and lines into joyful compositions of harmony and rhythm. Mosehe Rosenthalis divided his time between studios in Jaffa and Safed. A master of color, Rosenthalis transformed shapes and lines into joyful compositions of harmony and rhythm. After an exhibition at the Che des Arts in Paris (1974), one critic described him as "the most French of artists." He had solo exhibitions throughout Israel, as well as in Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. A major retrospective of his work was held at the Herzliya Museum in 1983. He taught art at many institutions, including the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, and was a prominent member of the Safed art colony. He died in 2008 at the age of 86.