Israel Hershberg

Israel Hershberg was born in 1948 in the Linz displaced-persons camp in Austria, the child of Holocaust survivors.[2][1] He was brought to Israel in 1949, but left at age nine when his family emigrated to the United States.[1] He subsequently undertook an extensive program of artistic study there.[1]

In 1984, Hershberg returned to Israel with his wife and family.[1] His American artistic training provided the background for the realist and figurative approach for which he later became known.[4][5]

In surveys of Israeli art through the early 1990s, Hershberg appears among the relatively few contemporary painters working in a realistic style, known for “fastidiously hyper-realistic still lifes and interiors.”[4] He is also associated with Israel’s continuing figurative tradition. His highly detailed landscapes capture Mediterranean light and a patina of desert dust, while his close examinations of cypress trees create “portraits of iconic green sentinels on the horizon.”[3]

His painting Jerusalem, City Center (1989–1990) was included in a Bonhams Israeli Art and Judaica auction in London, where it was estimated to sell for £100,000–£150,000.[1] Hershberg received the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art in 1991 and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Prize for Israeli Art in 1998.[1]

In the late 1980s, Hershberg was shocked when he was introduced to an Israeli art student and realized that the student was blind.[5] The anecdote was set against a period when the Israeli art scene was described as relatively uniform and when an artist’s ability to see or sketch was regarded as less important than the spiritual or intellectual dimension of the work.[5] Hershberg’s American-trained figurative approach stood in contrast to that tendency.

His large-scale landscape Tel Kakun, painted between 2005 and 2007, depicts a verdant panorama described as having changed from the site of Crusader battles into peaceful farmland.[2] The work places the Israeli landscape in dialogue with traditions of classical landscape painting and photography.[2]

Hershberg established the Jerusalem Studio School in 1998.[6] The school has been described as instrumental in bringing figurative painting back to the Israeli art scene.[2] Among the artists who studied with Hershberg was Aram Gershuni, who has identified him as one of his artistic masters.[6]

Hershberg’s son, Yedidya Hershberg, is also an artist and was among the participants in a 2019 exhibition at the Petah Tikva Museum of Art.[6]

Hershberg’s legacy lies in his sustained practice and teaching of realist and figurative painting in Israel. His recognition includes the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Prize for Israeli Art.[1] His influence is also visible in the career of Aram Gershuni, who studied with him and regards him as an artistic master.[6]

Through his detailed still lifes, interiors, and landscapes, Hershberg occupies a distinctive place within Israel’s continuing figurative tradition.[3][4] The Jerusalem Studio School extended that commitment into art education and contributed to the renewed visibility of figurative painting in Israel.[2]