Photographed by Stanley Batkin

View artwork »

View exhibitions »

View videos and articles »

Visit our Information Center to browse the artist file »

File includes:

Digital File

Moshe Castel, painter, born 1909, Jerusalem, descended from a Jewish-Spanish family which came from Castile in 1492. He traveled to Paris in 1927, stayed and studied in Paris until 1940. In the 1930s and 1940s, many of Castel's paintings depicted the lives of Sephardic Jews in the Holy Land, revealing the influence of Persian miniatures. From the 1950s on, Castel created relief paintings inspired by the "ancient predecessors of Hebrew civilization." In 1948, he visited the ruins of an ancient synagogue in Korazin, an ancient Jewish town in the Galilee.Inspired by the basalt blocks he saw there, engraved with images and ornaments, he began to use ground basalt, which he molded into shapes, as his basic material. The technique utilized ground basalt rock mixed with sand and glue, infused with the rich colors that became his trademark. The works were embellished with archaic forms derived from ancient script, symbolism and mythological signs from Hebrew and Sumerian culture. As a member of the New Horizons Group, he combined elements of abstract European art with Eastern motifs and "Canaanite art. His first paintings were landscapes and portraits of Jewish types in Oriental style
in the 1940s mystical paintings of the French School, in Safed
later abstracts, designed logos, souvenirs and murals, one of which was for the Accadia Hotel. He used lettering as the inspiration for pictures, two in the Knesset and in the President's Residence. 1947 Was a founder of the New Horizons Group. 2010 The Museum of Moshe Castel was built in his honor/memory in Maalaeh Adumim; the building was designed by Israeli architect David Resnik, overlooking the desert landscape.. .

Education

1921-1925 Bezalel, Jerusalem,(at age 12), with Boris Schatz
1927 Academie Julien, Paris, France,
1927 Ecole du Musee du Louvre, Paris, France

Awards And Prizes

1941 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture
1938 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture
1958 Malach Israeli Independence Day Prize
1959 Prize Premio do Estado, Sao Paolo Biennale, Brazil

Environmental Sculptures

1940's Accadia Hotel, Herzliyah, Wall Mural in lobby
1966 The Knesset, Jerusalem, "Praise to Jerusalem"
1970-71 President's Residence, Reception Room, Jerusalem, "Wall of Fame", and "Golden Scrolls"