A tribute to the great artist Gershon Knispel (1932 - 2018)

Gershon Knispel, who passed away on September 7, 2018, attended the opening of our exhibition, "Barriers to Peace" last year on November 18 . It proved to be his last joint exhibition.

With great pride, appreciation and gratitude, I would like to share with everyone this information that will remain etched in my heart as long as I live.

In my visit to the great artist Abed Abede last year, I learned from him that the amazing, great artist Gershon Knispel had returned to our country for personal reasons. So I found myself in Gershon Knispel’s studio among his huge oeuvre of oil works on canvas and prints. It was a very special meeting and I learned a lot from it. Knispel agreed to participate in our next exhibition entitled "Barriers to Peace". After a long conversation about the content, he asked me to take a week in order to choose appropriate works for display at the exhibition. On my second visit I came with all my admiration as well as gratitude that he entrusted to me three precious works, as well as three related screen-prints. He even agreed to attend the opening and address the audience.

So at the opening he and the other artists spoke about themselves and their works. Among the attendees were visitors from our village, from around the country as well as friends of the village from several foreign countries, who were in the village for an annual conference.

The Knispel works exhibited at the gallery demonstrate the social realism artistic genre of which he was a prominent exponent and one of the founders in this country.

The artworks:
A tribute to the triptych B. B. B. 1999 – 2012
Tribute to residents of the bombed cities Belgrade, Beirut and Baghdad.
(oil on canvas 180 x 100 cm. X 3)

With three more related screen-prints
Belgrade in World War II, Beirut in 1982 during the Israeli aggression on Palestinian residents, and Baghdad in 1990, during the US war on Iraq.)