The Israel Film Service Collection

Portrait of an artist: Osias Hofstatter

28 Minutes, 1989
Genre:
Documentary
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Directed by: Yachin Hirsh
Production:Igal Efrati, Shmuel Altman
Production Company:Israeli Film Service
Photographer: Yachin Hirsh
Language: Hebrew
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Subtitles: English, Hebrew

A film produced by the Israel Film Service. The painter Osias Hofstatter, a resident of Ramat Gan, views himself as a “tragic optimist”. A speech he gives at the opening of his retrospective in the Herzliya Museum supports this statement. Hofstatter moves gracefully from a mention of his parents, killed in the Holocaust, to the gratefulness and love he experiences for his wife. The speech also reflects the inspiration of surrealism n the artist’s work. Hofstatter was born in what is today eastern Poland, traveled Europe extensively in the wake of WWI, experienced the holocaust and reached Israel in 1957, after a failed attemt to resettle in Poland. His cultural languge is very European, openly modern and at times Christian. He draws in various mediums, using diverse tools, including a toothbrush. The subject of his mature work are non-figurative human figures whose gender is often fluid. Hofstatter studies questions og eros and gender. He is influenced by James Ensor, Hyronimous Bosch and El Greco. His paintings often evoke sorrow he experienced during his life time, but never horrors. By this he distinguishes himself from Goya, although his art is often compared to that of the Spanish master. The film present Hofstatter’s are along with his rich and philosophical ideas.

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הירשמו לרשימת התפוצה שלנו והישארו מעודכנים

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