Reuven Rubin

Sheikh Munis, 1923-1924,
oil on canvas, 81X56 cm.
Signed and dated.

The authenticity of the painting has been confirmed by Ms. Carmela Rubin, Rubin Museum, Tel-Aviv.

Another wonderful Eretz-Israeli painting from the peak period of Reuven – the years between 1923-1926. The language of the painting indicates that this is one of the earliest of Reuven’s paintings after his settlement in Tel Aviv. For, the painting confirms how difficult it was for the painter to part with the use of black outlines (which are found, for example, in the painting "The Tailor" from 1920, or in the painting "A Woman with Twigs" from approximately 1922). And the relatively fertile color (mainly, in the coloring of the clouds) connects the current painting to the paintings of Reuven before he came to Israel (and compare, for example, to "Old Jew" from 1920). As early as it is, this is a painting that was painted after Reuven moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in 1923, one of the paintings of "Sheikh Munis" (the original name is " Sheikh Moanis", after the sheikh whose grave is in the village, which is now Tel Aviv University). On two other paintings of the landscape of Sheikh Munis, painted by Reuven in 1923-1924, we wrote in the past: "If in the other painting of Sheikh Munis the main road was painted with a view to the sea, then in the current painting of Sheikh Munis the view is to the east, and the hills in the background are the hills on which the village resides. Reuven’s Sheikh Munis is an Arab village – surrounded by fields […] and inhabited by a handful of colorful houses – red in one painting, pink in the other. Here there are cypresses towering on both sides of the road, and there are sabra bushes on the left; "Here is an Arab woman and a donkey walking on the road with their backs to us, while there, is an Arab man walking with a donkey. Common to both paintings is the composition of a main road that slices the view leading to the village, and a Sycamore tree leaning over the road at the end." (Tiroche Catalog, Auction No. 142, 25.6.2011) The present painting, which we have not known until now, directs the view south or north (no sea on the western horizon and no hills on the eastern horizon). Like his other Sheikh Munis paintings, Reuven chose to focus on a central, clear path, fenced off by a low stone fence, which behind it are trees and a handful of houses that are revealed, and in the middle – four Arab figures (All women?) Walking or donkey-mounted (in previous paintings, only One figure rode a donkey or walked beside it). The agave bush in the lower right corner we remember from the painting of the Arabian sitting on the ground with a flowerpot in her hand – "in the cemetery", 1923-1924. Those days, maybe the same area. The current painting is a love song by Romanian Reuven (30 years old) to the exotic East he met: the wide path draws us in to the outskirts of the village which was established in the 18th century during the Ottoman period and inhabited by Egyptian peasants (in 1922 there were 644 inhabitants in the whole village). peacefulness guided the view, the bright radiant light from the path, the simplicity of the life of the troubled Arab women in day-to-day work – all these ends up in the calm and harmonious rural landscape, which has 24 years left before its inhabitants fled and before its houses are destroyed in the Independence War.

"Full disclosure: As a young boy living in the neighborhood, I dipped more than once in the abandoned pool in Sheikh Munis, which was originally used by the peasants to irrigate the orchards. The current painting is a rare work by Reuven Rubin, an eye-catching painting, a memento of an "old Middle East".

Gideon Ofrat

Estimated price: $100,000 - $150,000

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About: Reuven Rubin

Born in Romania in 1893 Rubin is known as a leading prominent Israeli artist to this day. At age 19 he came to the then Palestine and began his studies at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem. Less than a year later he left for Paris and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but had to leave France when the First World War broke out. He whiled the years of the war in his native Romania and then traveled to New York in 1921 where he had an exhibition sponsored by Alfred Stieglitz. Following his return to Europe, in 1923 he returned to Palestine to become one of the founding fathers of Israeli art. Rubin’s early paintings from the 1920s’ seem to portray the “Zionist dream”, indeed, an idealized perception of the Jewish return to the historical homeland. He eagerly depicted the natural sights and the diversified human landscape of the land – traditional devout Jews, secular pioneers and Arabs – his bright vivid colors reflecting the Mediterranean sunlight and bypassing the tensions following the Arab riots at the end of that decade, the awareness to which came only later. Rubin’s style was naïve, inspired by European modernism (most particularly the French Henri Rousseau comes to mind but also Derain and Matisse) and reflecting a child-like enthusiasm vis-à-vis the new life forming around. The local flora and fauna, so often incorporated into his compositions of landscapes and portraits alike, are not merely decorative but rather they symbolize renewal, growth, harmony and above all that newcomer’s quest to instantly feel rooted in the new environment. Rubin’s depictions of Tel Aviv growing on the sand dunes, his panoramic landscapes of Jerusalem, his numerous depictions of the road to Safed, Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, became his trademark. His depictions of the Judean hills and the silvery-green Galilean olive groves became gradually more ethereal, immersed in a mystical atmosphere. In 1973 he was awarded the Israel Prize for his lifetime achievement in art. His paintings hang in the Knesset Building, in the Presidential Residence in Jerusalem, at the Prime Minister’s Residence and offices, in leading Israeli museums and in public and private collections in Israel and abroad. In 1983 The Rubin Museum opened to the public in Rubin’s former family home in Tel Aviv, showcasing his art in particular and Israeli art in general.