Lot 83: ISRAEL HERSHBERG (ISRAELI, BORN 1948) Landscape signed and dated ‘I He

ISRAEL HERSHBERG (ISRAELI, BORN 1948) Landscape signed and dated ‘I Hershberg 71’ (lower right) oil on canvas 16 x 18in

Provenance The artist. Private collection, New York, acquired from the above, 1972. Estate of the above. Acquired by the present owner from the above. Born in 1948, Israel Hershberg spent most of his early life in Israel. At approximately ten years old, he moved with his parents to the United States where he later attended the Brooklyn Museum School in Brooklyn, New York, from 1966 until 1968. Four years later, in 1972, Hershberg received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and a year after that, his Master of Arts from the State University of New York in Albany. For the decade that followed, Hershberg taught painting and drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, and then for one additional year, at the New York Academy of Art before returning to Israel in 1984. The present work, painted in 1971 when Hershberg was still a Fine Art student at Pratt, is an early example of the artist’s success with landscape. His confident handling of pigments, fluid execution and subtle touches of color in a muted palette, are reminiscent of the work of contemporary painter Fairfield Porter. Hershberg sold the present work to a private collector in upstate New York in 1972, likely while he was studying at the State University of New York in Albany. Hershberg’s paintings reside in the collections of numerous international institutions, including the Jewish Museum, New York, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.