THREE MUSICIANS Large Oil Painting French Israeli Modernist Artist Nissan Engel

Dimensions: H: 43.5, W: 31.0 IN

Genre: Modern Subject: Music Medium: Oil Surface: Board Country: France Dimensions: 36.5" x 23.5" Dimensions w/Frame: 43.5" x 31"

Hand signed lower right

NISSAN ENGEL Israel, b. 1931 Multidisciplinary artist Nissan Engel was born in Haifa, Israel in 1931. Best known for his mixed media works, Engel incorporates myriad techniques and materials to create his expressive, uniquely cohesive compositions.

At the age of 17, Engel enlisted in the army and served as a combat aircraft machine gunner in the war for independence. Upon leaving the army, he entered Jerusalem’s prestigious Beaux-Arts Bezalel, where Grand Master Mordechai Ardon would be one of his professors. After graduating from Bezalel, Engel moved to France where he eventually earned a diploma in theater design from the Centre Dramatique de l’Est in Strasbourg. In the mid-1950s, he made his way to Paris where he put his training to work as a stage and costume designer. In 1960, Engel exhibited his paintings at the Galerie André Weil, the first of many successful shows with the gallery. Five years later, he moved to New York City where he continued to produce figurative and representational paintings of landscapes, still lifes, and equestrian themes in a graphic and colorful style.

Engel’s style continuously evolved over the course of his long and prolific career. He explored and perfected new modes of creation and expression, branching out from painting to incorporate drawing, collage, and printmaking into his pieces. Influenced by prominent European Expressionists such as Picasso, Klee, Marini, and Kandisnky, Engel also studied and drew inspiration from the work of conceptual artists Oppenheim and Beuys, and from friends and colleagues of the abstract expressionist New York School.

Since his first shows in the late 1950s, Engel has regularly exhibited at top galleries in France, Israel, the United States, and around the globe. His art can be found in the collections of the Bridgeston Museum, Tokyo; the Weizman Institute in Rehovot, Israel; Elf Atochem Corporation, Paris, The Jewish Museum, New York City; Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo; The Detroit Institute of Arts; the Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, Virginia and more.