User:Stephanie2Mazalto/Yehuda Neiman

Yehuda Neiman is a painter, photographer and sculptor of Polish origin born in Warsaw (Poland) on October 22, 1931 and died in Eaubonne on July 4, 2011. He emigrated to Palestine in 1940 under the British mandate and lived there until 1953. He had French and Israeli nationality.

Biography
He left Warsaw on September 1, 1939 with his mother and a friend, Mordechai Tsanin (who later became his stepfather); his father, Ezekiel Moshe Neiman (1893-1956), joined them later. They settled in Palestine. Neiman studied art at the Academy of Painting in Tel Aviv (Israel) until 1949, then traveled to London and Paris where he settled in 1954 to continue his studies at the Arts Décoratifs.

The day he arrived, he met Yves Klein at the Select in Montparnasse. He quickly became acquainted with the many artists living in the neighborhood, such as Tinguely and Hains; he also rubbed shoulders with César, Giacometti, Maryan, Camille Bryen, Halpern and Lan-Bar. His work at that time - oil painting - was the subject of personal exhibitions in London from 1955 (New Vision Center, Obelisk Gallery, Drian Gallery).

Close to and friends with many artists known as the New Realists, he met them every night at La Coupole; at closing time, these bon vivants continued their discussion of art at the Falstaff and the Rosebud.

In 1958, Neiman exhibited in Rome and Milan. In 1959-1960, as part of the so-called "informal" group, he participated with Hains and Villeglé in the first Biennale des jeunes.

In 1959, he began to work with photography, first by painting directly on the photo and thus realized the series of "flowers".

In 1968, he was invited to Japan by the art critic Shinichi Segui, along with Klein, Hunter-Wasser and Mathieu. The same year, he participated in an important erotic exhibition "Superlund, Erotic Art" organized in Lund (Sweden) by Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen; the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro acquired one of his "direct casts".

In 1969, Neiman appears in "Photography into art", the first exhibition of painters who used photography like Rauschenberg, Dibbets. Many English artists were present at this event. [to be completed]

His Work
Working in painting and sculpture, he was a precursor in the early 1960s of the projection of photographs on different media, the multiplication of the image by means of photographic techniques, but especially the restructuring of the figurative image.

Most often attached to mec-art ([or mec'art], "mechanical art"), he did not participate, in Paris, in October 1965, in the manifesto exhibition "Homage to Nicéphore Niepce" (Galerie "J"), organized by Pierre Restany. But he was the first to show a photo as a painting (Raymond Cazenave Gallery, Paris, 1967). Before the era of the computer, that is to say also of the software of the work of photography, Yehuda Neiman makes in his work a systematic use of the technique then available.

At the same time as Rotella, he developed means to sensitize or emulsify the supports on which he developed his subjects, his themes (women, nudes, feminine details, faces, horses, portraits).


 * "His images of the flesh are beautiful as love," Restany writes of Neiman's works.

From the end of 1965, Neiman succeeded in laying the foundation for a modern erotic iconography, which he also developed in his sculptures and especially in his casts of details of the female body, an interest that he would pursue throughout his work.

Evolution
Neiman first worked with oils, and produced paintings of abstract inspiration (clouds) until 1958. Aline Dallier-Popper writes about him: "The artist often employs an almost monochromatic gray contemporary of the immaterial blue of Yves Klein." He also approaches inks in this sense, he realizes collages (rayograms), prints around 1960, and his research on the black will quickly make him lead to the photo. The use of monochrome will return in his photo reports on canvas or metal surface.

With this medium, since this artist relates to photography as a painter, Neiman places the female body at the center of his art - either to magnify the details by multiplying them (breasts, buttocks, sex) or as the framework of an abstract painting ("landscape woman") by paying attention to the grain.

At the same time, he began to work as a sculptor, using direct casts from models and by carving marble. As in his photographs, the artist isolates or monumentalizes parts of the female body, often proceeding by multiplication of the same motif.

From the 1980s onwards, he resumed oil painting mixed with postcard collages, while continuing the photographic portraits he had made throughout his career. These works were the subject in 2001 of an exhibition of "portraits of artists" in Ibiza.

Some of his photographs are reproduced in different forms, techniques, materials or sizes. For example, Woman Landscape, a photograph taken in 1969, was printed on canvas or aluminum, in various formats and colors, published as a piece of jewelry in the early 1980s, and then realized in 2005 as a monumental work (200x180 cm) for the Cantanhede Sculpture Symposium (Portugal).

Monumental sculptures

 * La Ronde (1966-1987), marble, h45cm 120 cm diameter, The Open Museum, Tefen, Israel
 * The Column (1966-1999), grey granite, 320x120 cm, Puyo, Korea, 1999
 * The Kiss, pink granite, Seoul, Korea, 2001
 * Woman landscape (1969-2005), limestone, 200x180 cm, Cantanhede, Portugal.

Main exhibitions

 * Individual exhibitions


 * 1955 : Tel Aviv, Chemerinsky Gallery
 * 1957 : Londres, New Vision Center
 * 1958 : Londres, Obelisk Gallery ; Milan, Blù Gallery ; Rome, La Salita Gallery
 * 1960 : Londres, Drian Gallery
 * 1963 : Couper Gallery
 * 1964 : Tel Aviv, Hadassa Gallery
 * 1965 : Luxembourg, Luxembourg town Gallery
 * 1967 : Milan, Schwarz Gallery ; Paris, Cazenave Gallery
 * 1968 : Kyoto, Yamada Gallery ; Tokyo, Yoseido Gallery
 * 1969 : Bruxelles, Aspects Gallery ; Tel Aviv, Mabat Gallery
 * 1970 : Buenos Aires, Centre de Arte y Comunication ; Buenos Aires, National Museum of Argentina ; Essen, Thelen Gallery
 * 1971 : Cologne, Thelen Gallery ; Cordoba, Modern Art Museum
 * 1972 : Paris, "Chevaux", Samy Chalom Gallery
 * 1974 : Milan, Eros (Serigraphs)
 * 1975 : Milan, "Bon à tirer" ; Milan, Sirio (Bijoux)
 * 1979 : Paris, La Closerie des Lilas
 * 1982 : Paris, "Portraits", J.&J. Donguy
 * 1988 : Paris, J.-P. Haïk Gallery
 * 1989 : Midgal Tefen, Open Museum ; Formentera, Sa-Nostra
 * 2001 : Ibiza (Espagne), Sala de Cultura Eivissa ; Formentera (Espagne), Sa-Nostra


 * Posthumous exhibitions


 * Hommage à Neiman, novembre 2011, Galerie Vallois, Paris
 * Homenatge a Yehuda Neiman, juillet 2012, Formentera, Espagne

Public collections

 * Fonds national d'art contemporain, Paris (France)
 * Musée de Berkeley, Californie (E.-U.)
 * Kunstverein, Düsseldorf (Allemagne)
 * Musée d'art moderne, Haïfa (Israël)
 * Musée d'Israël, Jérusalem
 * Musée d'art moderne, Rio de Janeiro (Brésil)
 * Moderna Museet, Stockholm (Suède)
 * Musée d'art moderne, Tel-Aviv (Israël)
 * Musée d'art moderne, Berne (Suisse)
 * Université de Tel-Aviv
 * Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris
 * Musée ouvert « Migdal Tefen », Galilée
 * Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
 * Maison européenne de la photographie

Books

 * Pierre Restany, Lyrisme et Abstraction, Milan, Ed. Apollinaire, 1960
 * René Berger, Encyclopédie d'art moderne, Lausanne, Ed. Club du livre, 1964
 * Gérard Zwang, Le Sexe de la femme, Paris, Ed. La Jeune Parque, 1967
 * Pierre Restany, Les Nouveaux Réalistes, Paris, Ed. Planète, 1968
 * Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen, Erotic Art, Ed. Grove Press, 1969
 * Udo Kultermann, The New Sculptur, Ed. Thames & Huston, 1969
 * Udo Kultermann, The New Painting, Ed. Pall Mall, 1970
 * Pierre Cabanne et Pierre Restany, Avant-Garde du XXe siècle, Paris, Balland, 1970
 * Pierre Cabanne, Art Erotic, 1971
 * Pierre Cabanne, Dictionnaire d'Art Moderne, 1976
 * Mec-art, Ed. Il Dialogo, Milan, 1979
 * Edouard Jaguer, Le Surréalisme et la photographie, Paris, Flammarion, 1982
 * Ionel Jianou, Gérard Xuriguera, Aube Lardera, La Sculpture moderne en France depuis 1950, Paris, Éditions d'art Arted, 1982

Some articles

 * Pierre Restany, « Neiman », Plexus,, 1966
 * Jorge Glusberg, Analisis, 1968
 * Amos Kenan, « Le Palais d'amour de Neiman », Yediot Achronot, 4 juin 1969
 * Georges Boudaille, « Le Nouveau musée de Tel-Aviv », Les Lettres françaises, 5 mai 1971
 * Pierre Cabanne, « Le Paysage de chair de Neiman », Le Matin, 9 mars 1979
 * Jean Marcenac, « Les arts », Europe, mai 1979