Yitzhak Danziger

{{Short description|Israeli sculptor (1916–1977)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Yitzhak Danziger<br>יצחק דנציגר | image = Izhakdanziger 1946.jpg | image_size = 180px | caption = Yitzhak Danziger, 1940's | birth_date = {{birth date|1916|06|26|df=yes}} | birth_place = Berlin, Germany | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|07|11|1916|06|26|df=yes}} | death_place = near Ramla, Israel | known_for = Painting and Sculpture | training = Slade School of Fine Arts University of London | movement = Canaanite Movement | notable_works = | patrons = | awards = }}

'''Yitzhak Danziger''' ({{langx|he|יצחק דנציגר}}; 26 June 1916 – 11 July 1977) was an Israeli sculptor. He was one of the pioneer sculptors of the Canaanite Movement, and later joined the "Ofakim Hadashim" (New Horizons) group.

== Early life == Danziger was born in Berlin in 1916. His father was a surgeon and served in the German Army during World War I.

The family settled in Jerusalem. Danziger studied art at the Slade School of Fine Art 1934–37. He met Marion Edie at the Slade and they later married and had a son, Jeremy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jeremy Danziger Obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jul/25/jeremy-danziger-obituary |website=The Guardian}}</ref> Marion's mother was Muslim and Marion's union with Danziger was happy. They remained friends after their separation.

Danziger's work was influenced by his visits to the British Museum, the Anthropological Museum and the art from Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, India and Oceania and Africa. These would later on play an important role in his sculptures.

== Style and Technique == His work centres on the need to redefine the essence of sculpture.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref> In the course of forty years, Danziger's work focused on two principal factors: space and time.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref> At the outset of his artistic path he created sculptures which inhibit space as static objects capable of being immediately perceived, and over the years the objects progressively diminished and the sculptural experience became an extended process of transitions in space and time, occurring in the landscape and blending into an organic succession of encounters between man and his environment.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

Danziger believed that the only option for the artist was to adhere to nature, to return to the landscape.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

He said in an interview: “Abstract sculpture at its best gives us no associations of reality, although it is rooted in reality. We are surrounded by nature and influenced by it: geological forces, changes in the environment over time, they all have their impact upon us. When we encounter a rectangular object, a table, a car, a cave, we react in various ways. We are sensitive to angles, to a narrow street we pass, to a riverbed, a steep slope, a sheer precipice, a falling shadow – all of these influence our feelings.”<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tzurit |title=Painters and Sculptors on Abstract Art |journal=Lamerhav |date=1959}}</ref>

He was fascinated by the relationship between man and animal, and between a world of order and disorder.<ref>{{cite web |title=Christie's Lot Essay |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4154387 |website=Christie's}}</ref> His artistic development was nourished by his longing to reach a oneness with that continuity which derives its vitality beyond immediate existence.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

To Danziger's way of thinking, the artist is an intermediary whose primary interest is to ensure the continued existence of that fragile encounter between man and the place he belongs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

Danziger derived new methods using the interdisciplinary approach, combining the fields of ecology, geography, anthropology, and archaeology.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996}}</ref> Each of these fields contributes in its own way to the creation of the encounter with the "place" with all the varied contents of a man's natural environment which merge in a unique way, to create a complex network, a plurality of meanings, a completeness which is indivisible and integral.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

==Career== He returned to Palestine and set up a studio at Tel Aviv in 1937.

Danziger created his statue "Nimrod" in 1938–1939. The statue is 90 centimetres high and made of Red Nubian Sandstone imported from Petra in Jordan. It depicts Nimrod as a naked hunter, uncircumcised, carrying a bow and with a hawk on his shoulder. The style shows the influence of Ancient Egyptian statues.

The unveiling of the statue caused a scandal. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem which had commissioned Danziger's statue was not happy with the result and religious circles made strong protests.

Within a few years, however, the statue was universally acclaimed as a major masterpiece of Israeli art, and has noticeably influenced and inspired the work of later sculptors, painters, writers and poets up to the present.

The Nimrod Statue was also taken up as the emblem of a cultural-political movement known as "The Canaanites", which advocated the shrugging off of the Jewish religious tradition, cutting off relations with Diaspora Jews and their culture, and adopting in its place a "Hebrew Identity" based on ancient Semitic heroic myths – such as Nimrod's. Though never gaining mass support, the movement had a considerable influence on Israeli intellectuals in the 1940s and early 1950s.

In 1946 Danziger went to Grande Chaumière in the south of France to work in the local sandstone, from which he sculpted large-scale figures and heads.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref> During the summer of 1948, he stayed in Perpignan in the South of France. In September, he settled in London and reconnected with his classmates from the Slade, including Eduardo Paolozzi and Kenneth Armitage.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref> In 1950 he had a solo exhibition at the Brook Street Gallery. Danziger was involved with two schools: the Cass Institute near Whitechapel and he participated in two courses in the design of gardens and landscape at the School of Architecture Association. While entering art competitions, he supported himself financially restoring the facades of buildings such as the Neo-Gothic stone carvings on the Houses of Parliament in London.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref>

In 1955 he returned to Israel and he was commissioned to design a sculpture for the Kaplan building of the Hebrew University. In the same year, Danziger began teaching three-dimensional design in the Architecture Department at the Technion Institute in Haifa, a position he held for the rest of his life. He also had teaching roles at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press}}</ref> He also enjoyed running workshops at the artists’ village at Ein Hod, which was an integral part of his vision as an artist.

Danziger and seventeen sculptors from different countries were invited to participate in the cultural events of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. He created 'Gate of Peace', a giant sculpture that reaches some 7.5m in height.<ref>{{cite web |title=Puerta de Paz |url=https://mexicocity.cdmx.gob.mx/venues/puerta-paz/ |website=Mexico City}}</ref>

== Artistic Legacy == He is considered to be one of Israel's most important sculptors.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sotheby's catalogue |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/israeli-international-art-n08921/lot.17.html |website=Sotheby's}}</ref> He was a mentor and a model of artistic practice.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Omer |first1=Mordechai |title=Itzhak Danziger |date=1996 |publisher=Kai Press |pages=426}}</ref>

His work continues to be very popular. He is best known for his sculptures of figures, including "Head of a Man".<ref name="Ynet News">{{cite news |last1=Amit |first1=Eitan |title=Israeli art takes off in NY |url=https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3059760,00.html |newspaper=Ynetnews|date=17 March 2005 }}</ref> His sculptures of goats "Ein Gedi" <ref>{{cite web |title=Christie's Lot Essay |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4154387 |website=Christie's}}</ref> and sheep "Sheep of the Negev"<ref>{{cite web |title=Sotheby's Catalogue Note |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2010/israeli-and-international-art-n08690/lot.61.html |website=Sotheby's}}</ref> are known for reflecting his artistic vision. He explained: "A flock of sheep resembles a carpet, something which glides down the hill and covers the ground, the slope of the valley...Sheep are symbols, models. Through the sheep I reach what interests me, the soil, light and shade."<ref>{{cite web |title=Sotheby's Catalogue Note |url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2010/israeli-and-international-art-n08690/lot.61.html |website=Sotheby's}}</ref>

His son, Jeremy Danziger, was an artist, sculptor and university lecturer.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jeremy Danziger Obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jul/25/jeremy-danziger-obituary |website=The Guardian}}</ref>

== Awards == * 1945, the Dizengoff Prize for Sculpture.<ref name=Dizengoff>{{cite web |url=http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516742.pdf |title=List of Dizengoff Prize laureates |publisher=Tel Aviv Municipality |language=he |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217141815/http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516742.pdf |archive-date=2007-12-17 }}</ref> * 1958 Milo Club Award, Kiryat Ono Monument Prize, Tel Aviv * 1968, the Israel Prize, in sculpture.<ref name=prize>{{Cite web| title = Israel Prize Official Site – Recipients in 1968 (in Hebrew)| url = http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashkag/Tashlab_Tashkag_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tashkah}}</ref> * 1969, Sandberg Prize, in sculpture, Israel Museum of Jerusalem

==See also== *List of Israel Prize recipients

==References== ;General * {{IMJ-IAC|id=273428|access-date=25 September 2011}}

;Specific {{reflist}}

==External links== {{Commons category}} * {{IMJ-Collections|first=Itzhak|last=Danziger|accessdate=12 February 2012 }} * {{IMJ-IAC|id=273428|name=Itzhak Danziger|access-date=12 February 2012 }} * {{Europeana|first=Itzhak|last=Danziger|accessdate=12 February 2012}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Danziger, Yitzhak}} Category:German emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Category:Israel Prize in sculpture recipients Category:Sandberg Prize recipients Category:Canaanites (movement) Category:Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Category:1916 births Category:1977 deaths Category:20th-century Israeli sculptors Category:20th-century Israeli painters Category:Road incident deaths in Israel Category:Rehavia Gymnasium alumni Category:Israeli people of German-Jewish descent Category:Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium alumni Category:Hebrew Reali School alumni Category:Academic staff of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology