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Joseph Zaritsky, an Israeli painter, was born in 1891 in Ukraine. In 1923 Zaritsky immigrated to the Land of Israel and settled in Jerusalem.
Zaritsky was one of the initiators of the first exhibition of Israeli artists in the Tower of David. From 1927 he served as the chairman of the Painters and Sculptors Association in Israel. In 1948 headed the "New Horizons" organization.
Zaritsky painted watercolor landscapes and his work became gradually more expressive. Zaritsky developed a style of painting called "Lyrical Abstract", where the abstract forms – usually squares, were processed using brush strokes into compositions and splashes of color increasingly dissociated from the original.
The early 20s, Zaritsky moved to Tel Aviv. In 1927 he visited Paris where he was exposed to Western modernist art. In the 1930-40s he focused on urban landscape - Tel Aviv roofs as seen from the roof of his house.
From 1949-1951 he taught art in Kibbutz Yehiam and Naan. The open countryside inspired him to create a series of watercolor drawings.
In 1954 Zaritsky traveled to Europe over two years. In Paris he was impressed by the blossoming of two-dimentional painting, versus illusory- figurative painting. In 1955 he spent some time in Amsterdam.
In series created between the years 1964-1974 there is an increasing distancing from realistic description, and a more abstract composition and structure of the painting.
From the early Seventies, Zaritsky spent every summer in a studio in Kibbutz Tsuba, where he painted a simplification of the landscape in watercolors. During the Eighties, he created a series of paintings, some of monumental sizes, based on works by artists such as Goya, Picasso, Chagall and others.
Joseph Zaritsky died in 1985 in Tel Aviv.

Education

1910-14 Art Academy, Kiev

Teaching

1932-33 Opened studio in the cellar of his home in Rehov Mapu, Tel Aviv. From 1949-1951 he taught art in Kibbutz Yehiam and Naan.

Awards And Prizes

1942 Dizengoff Prize
1951 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
1959 The Israel Prize, Ministry of Education and Culture
1960 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
1987 Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1982 Worthy of Tel Aviv - Jaffa