The Exhibition

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SABA'S* COLLECTION

*Saba means Grandfather (Hebrew) 

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This Exhibition displays paintings which were meticulously copied from photographs of paintings by other artists, out of a collection of 120 paintings. Mr. Cohen chose to these paintings from art books, newspapers, book covers etc. Usually, the paintings chosen were particularly graphic with defined borders and shape, in color or in black and white.

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Mr. Cohen began to paint at 70 years of age and continued with pleasure up to the age of 90. Each of his paintings is signed “SABA”, “Grandfather” in Hebrew.

In the basis to the documentation of this unique variety of paintings stands Mr. Cohen’s personal outlook. It allows for the intensifying of an authentic story in which a dialogue is formed between the artists and the artworks he has chosen according to his personal taste and beliefs, life experiences and joyful character. The copies became a sort of parallel reality entailing powerful meaning well beyond the everyday presence. The artists whose works were chosen by Mr. Cohen to be copied were of varied styles, each painting carrying a particular message to his family. These expressions were tactically assembled like moves on a chessboard – the clever game Mr. Cohen so liked to play.

The subjects represented in the paintings are also of varied nature, expressing Mr. Cohen’s character and curious nature: Relationship, physical and metaphysical love; Home, the homey, and the warmth of everyday life; the beach, the night’s view and Israeli landscape; people in various positions; music, musicians and dance; Japanese nature and wildlife and Japanese artistic characters; animals, plants and native Africans painted in strong rhythm and colorfulness; sadness, melancholy, end of the world and sentenced persons; the Jewish village and more.

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WORDS FROM THE CURATOR of the exhibition, Ms. Dvora Bochman, are available only in hebrew in her art blog: LINK.