Skip to main content
Lot 131*

Lea Nikel
(Israeli, 1918-2005)
Composition

29 February 2012, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £20,000 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Lea Nikel (Israeli, 1918-2005)

Composition
signed and dated 'Lea Nikel 68' (lower left)
oil on canvas
80 x 70cm (31 1/2 x 27 9/16in).

Footnotes

Born in Russia, Lea Nikel was brought to Palestine in 1920. From 1950-1961, she lived and worked in Paris. Whilst in Paris, she exhibited at a number of galleries and in a group exhibition at the Musee National d'Art Moderne. Her sojourn in Paris drew her toward CoBrA artists and Parisian tachism and closer to abstract expressionist art. After Paris, Nikel moved to New York and then Rome before eventually returning to Israel in the early 1970s. Gideon Ofrat refers to Nikel's paintings declaring: "Nikel's work is unique in its spontaneous power of improvisation on canvas and in her skillful construction of 'mythologies' of sensual personal forms, all resting upon an explosively vivid range of colour and a vital symphonic flow."

Lea Nikel was the recipient of the prestigious Israel Prize in 1995.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
G. Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in Israel, (Canada, 1998), p. 174

Additional information