Sotheby’s Jennifer Roth went prospecting in Canada for works by Israeli artists, according to the Canadian Jewish News:
At auctions today, the most popular Israeli works are by masters such as Reuven Rubin and Mordecai Ardon, whose paintings have fetched sums well over six figures.
“An Ardon was sold for more than $1 million to a Japanese museum, and Michal Rovner, a contemporary artist, sold an installation for over $800,000 just a few years ago.
Meanwhile, the photographer Adi Nes sold a work, based on Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, for more than $250,000.
Israeli art has passed through several thematic phases, she said.
“The early artists dealt with Zionism and the land and life in pre-and post-independent Israel. The ‘New Horizons’ group of the late 1940s and 1950s consisted of purely abstract painters who no longer felt obligated to deal with the Zionist narrative.”
