Lot 113*
Eliahu Gat(Israeli, 1919-1987)Nude
29 February 2012, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £3,125 inc. premium
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Eliahu Gat (Israeli, 1919-1987)
Nude
signed in Hebrew (lower centre)
oil on canvas
106 x 125cm (41 3/4 x 49 3/16in).
painted 1960s
signed in Hebrew (lower centre)
oil on canvas
106 x 125cm (41 3/4 x 49 3/16in).
painted 1960s
Footnotes
Eliahu Gat was born in 1919 in the small town of Dokshitz in Belarus. In 1937, he immigrated to Mandate Palestine. In 1945, while still a soldier in the British Army, he studied for a year at Aharon Avni's painting studio. When he was transferred to Cairo, he enrolled in the Cairo Academy of Art, taking courses sponsored by the British Army. Following his discharge, he painted at the Stematsky – Streichman studio. Gat was among the founders of the Group of Ten in 1951 which consisted of graduates from the Stematsky-Streichman studio.
The landscape, a common denominator in all of Gat's works, also provides the background for his nudes. The principle influencing Gat's nudes is pantheism —the unification of all natural elements — flora, mountains, hills, people, — into a single vibrating whole. In his nudes of the 1960s one type of brushwork was used over the entire surface so that the body's contours dissolved into their surroundings.Gat's nudes are characterized by a foreshortened reclining position which creates a perspective illusion of depth. The foreshortening precludes the classical aesthetic spread of the feminine curves. The figure is always recumbent, never engaged in any daily activity, and generally devoid of eroticism. In Gat's case, nudity constitutes a complement and interpretation of the landscape, its sensuality and its repose, and of the artist's erotic relationship to it.