On Tuesday, an exhibition entitled “Human Faces—Human Landscape” [in Hebrew, “Pnei Adam—Pnei Hamakom”], featuring the paintings of artist Itzchak Pressburger, opened in the room of the Education, Culture and Sports Committee. The exhibition will be on display at the knesset in the next two and a half months.
Pressburger, 93, was born in Czechoslovakia. He has borne the memory of the Holocaust over the years, and it has influenced his paintings. Pressburger made Aliyah to Israel in 1947 after a turbulent journey on board the Exodus, and lives in Jerusalem with his family. From a young age, he began to paint the landscapes of Israel and portraits of people, first in a surrealist and expressionist style and then making a shift to realism. His artworks have been displayed in individual and group exhibitions in Israel and Europe (Berlin, Barcelona, the Netherlands, Milan), and have also been purchased for collections of state institutions in Israel, France and other countries.
At the opening event of the exhibition, Pressburger said, “Art is the last barrier that can stop the domination of technology from taking away our thought and our ability to look at one another. There were times in the past when I doubted whether painting could be a profession. After some time, I understood that art is the bridge that can bring people closer together.” Pressburger told about one of his paintings, which shows a man with a red neckerchief, saying, “I saw this man sitting by himself in Sacher Park and I asked his permission to take his picture before the painting, and he didn’t answer. He spoke to me with his eyes, without saying a word. Most of the people depicted in my paintings did not speak to me in words, but I felt that I was conducting a conversation with them and that I love them.”
“An artist’s soul is a higher soul,” said MK Yakov Margi (Shas) to the artist, complimenting him, and praised the ongoing tradition of exhibitions shown at the Education, Culture and Sports Committee.
A broad range of exhibitions are displayed from time to time at the Education, Culture and Sports Committee, featuring a selection of artists from the fields of sculpture, painting, photography and more. The current exhibition will be displayed until Tu Bishvat, and the Members of Knesset and participants of various committee debates will be able to view it.
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