The Schusterman Collection at the Haifa Museum of Art: A Dialogue of Israeli Art Through the Generations

In times of insecurity, loss and grief, a nation's art is a source of resilience. It is on this basis that the Haifa Museum of Art is presenting several new exhibitions, which pay tribute to over a century of Israeli creativity — from the 1906 creation of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem until today.

A promenant exhibition is A Sun-Kissed Land: the Schusterman Collection at the Museum, which features art newly donated to the Museum by Lynn Schusterman. Included are restored works from the first half of the 20th century, the period when Israeli art was in formation, and it features artists such as Nahum Gutman, Anna Ticho, Ephraim Moses Lilien, Yohanan Simon, Israel Paldi and Reuven Rubin, as well as art from the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts.

"The new relationship with the Schusterman Foundation and Mrs. Schusterman is of enormous importance for the Haifa Museum of Art," says Haifa Museums CEO Yotam Yakir. "Their support enables us to do and create more than ever before, and we're excited and grateful for this opportunity."

"Our main focus at the Museum was Israeli art from the 1950s," explains its chief curator, Dr. Kobi Ben-Meir. "With the Schusterman Collection's emphasis on work from 1906 until the establishment of the State, a significant new artistic and historical layer has been added to our collection, illustrating the transformation of local art over the years, and highlighting issues in Israeli culture that are still relevant today. Words aren't enough to thank Lynn Schusterman and the Schusterman Foundation team for their amazing gift."

The first gallery of A Sun-Kissed Land serves as a rift in time where the early 20th century Bezalel work meets early 21st photography. According to exhibition curator Alpern, the establishment of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts was a key Zionist project, and marked the launch of Israeli art. "The School's founders saw themselves as Westerners living in the East," she says. "They aspired to revive the Jewish spirit through art and crafts, and the Bezalel collection, from its Judaica to its carpets, is a search for the Jewish voice, a yearning to belong through art that has Zionist consciousness at its core."

In contrast to the traditional Jewish version of Zionism in Jerusalem, the exhibition's second gallery focuses on the works of artists in the Land of Israel — from Tel Aviv to the kibbutzim — during the 1920s to the 1950s. "Their approach differed from those at Bezalel," explains Alpern. "They turned away from Jewish motifs such as the menorah, pomegranate and the Dome of the Rock, choosing instead the landscapes of the country, its life and its people. They depicted the simplicity of life lived in harmony with nature, and underlined attachment to the land as part of the pioneering ideology."

The exhibition concludes with two contemporary photographic works. One, by Pavel Wolberg, shows a clown in Hebron on Purim; the other, by Gilad Ophir, is a giant cactus or sabra, typifying Israeli nature. Such modern work inevitably raises questions about the essence of Israeli identity, which is still clarifying its ties to Jewish tradition and the Land. A second new exhibition at the Museum is At Home: Dwelling of Love and Anxieties, curated by Ben-Meir. It concerns domestic space and threats to its stability, ideas that particularly resonate following October 7. It includes ten extraordinary works by the great French early 20th century painter Edouard Vuillard, providing a rare opportunity for Israeli gallery-goers to see his varied output in one place. His paintings are displayed along with those of five contemporary Israeli artists - Ira Eduardovna, Aram Gershuni, Tzion Abraham Hazan, Uriel Miron and Hilla Spitzer. These artists examine domestic environments and questions concerning painting, and they look at everyday objects such as soup bowls, carpets and chairs, and find in them beauty, meaning and memories.

A third new exhibition also considers domestic space. Displayed in the BFAMI (British Friends of Museums in Israel) gallery, a place for the whole family, it is called My Own Room. A collaboration between artist Hilla Spitzer (whose art covers the walls of this gallery) and architect Ariel Armoni, it invites children and adults to draw a room — their own or the room of their dreams — on blank postcards, and then place their drawing in one of the many windows of miniature buildings designed for the exhibit.

Natalia Zourabova Lives in Painting is another new exhibition. Displayed in the Museum's main hall and curated by Ben-Meir, it is a solo show by Moscow-born Zourabova, who immigrated to Israel in 2004, aged 29. She lives today in Jaffa, and in 2010 was one of the five painters, all born in the former USSR and now living and working in Israel, who created the New Barbizon Group. Her show at the Haifa Museum of Art follows solo exhibitions at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in 2019 and at Artport in Tel Aviv in 2023. It too has a domestic theme: the exhibit comprises large oil paintings of the interior of Zourabova's Jaffa home. Rising to the challenge of complex compositions in large formats, she has painted the interiors of her previous homes, as well, in Moscow and Berlin, because through painting, she says, she discovers the place where she lives.

An additional exhibition is Piranesi: Views of Rome, curated by Ben-Meir. It displays 17 engravings by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi, all restored in the past year. Piranesi painted in Rome in the mid-18th century, a time when educated people from all over Europe converged against the backdrop of the city's glorious historic buildings. Piranesi places relics from antiquity alongside early medieval churches, magnificent Renaissance buildings next to 18th-century figures — a jumble, which shows Rome as an archeological mound of life and knowledge. These exhibitions are a step in a significant, ongoing metamorphosis at the Haifa Museum of Art. "Since chief curator Dr. Kobi Ben-Meir joined the team three years ago, the Museum has undergone conceptual change," says Yakir. "Like leading museums worldwide, it emphasizes quality, creativity and excellence, but it has its own unique character. Through its collections and displays, the Museum connects with the essence of Haifa, and gives expression to this special city, which with its six different faiths and communities is a beacon of tolerance, pluralism, coexistence and acceptance of the other."

Exhibitions are showing until June 29, 2024

Haifa Museum of Art, 26 Shabtai Levi Street, Haifa, 3304331
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All Haifa's museums are open free of charge to IDF reservists and to families evacuated from their homes. The Kibbutz Beeri Exhibition at the Haifa City Museum is open free of charge to allcomers.

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