Figures in the Forest, Rare Drawing, Israeli Modernist master Itzhak Danzinger

Dimensions: H: 17.0, W: 17.0 IN

Yitzhak Danziger

Genre: Expressionist Subject: People Medium: Ink Surface: Paper Dimensions w/Frame: 17" x 17" Hand signed mid left

Yitzhak Danziger (Hebrew: יצחק דנציגר‎‎; 26 June 1916 – 11 July 1977) was an Israeli sculptor. He was one of the pioneer sculptors of the Canaanite Movement, and later joined the "Ofakim Hadashim" (New Horizons) group. orn in Berlin in 1916, Izhak Danziger moved to Palestine in 1923. From 1934-1937 Danziger studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. During the 1940s he worked in Paris with Zadkine and Brancusi. In the 1950s he exhibited in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He is considered to be one of Israel's most important sculptors. His work, which consists largely of environmental pieces, has been exhibited at the Hisrshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. In 1969 Danziger was awarded the Sandberg Prize by the Israel museum. He died in 1977. When discussing Chariot II, Mordechai Omer compares it to a work of similar subject by Alberto Giacometti. He explains that Danziger, unlike Giacometti, removes the figure, leaving only the chariot itself. Omer eloquently explains that "The vehicle designed to serve the needs of the person inside is devoid of this human presence, with only the memories of its headlong downhill journeys leaving their mark in the parts of a half-ruined, half-standing chariot, allowing wide scope for the viewer's imagination. If Giacometti's chariots reminded him of hospital pharmacy wagons, Danziger's gleaming brass chariots, with their clean geometric shapes, are more reminiscent of the equipages of battle or triumphal processions, whose journeys left their secrets in the implements built by men to help them cover the distances they wished to travel." (Itzhak Danziger, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv and The Open Museum, Indusrial Park, Tefen, 1996, p. 248) Danziger's chariot sculptures were given as prizes for the Israel Museum Book awards. Danziger was born in Berlin in 1916 to a Zionist family. His father was a surgeon and served in the German Army during World War I. The family immigrated to then Mandate Palestine in 1923 and settled in Jerusalem. Danziger studied art at the Slade School of Fine Art 1934–37. He was influenced by his visits to the British Museum, the Anthropological Museum and the art from Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, India and Oceania and Africa. These would later on play an important role in his sculptures.