Yochanan Simon

Yochanan Simon

Childrens’ Hour in the Kibbutz,
Oil on canvas, 65X54 cm.

Participated in the exhibition: Yohanan Simon: Dual Portrait, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2001. Curator: Tali Tamir

“In patched pants and a white apron, with a serving cart next to him, one of the best artists of our country stood in front of us. His body is slightly bent under the burden of years of toil, his face is brownish, and firm with a kind of softness that pours out of them. His eyes have a mixture of brown radiance with a dreamy and emotional look. I could not take my eyes off his character, a character of a great artist and a workman.” ("In Struggle" September 1946). For a decade now, Yochanan Simon has been living and creating in Eretz Israel, a member of Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. During the day he works picking citrus fruits, at night he is active in the “Haganah”, smuggling weapons and illegal immigrants to the beach; Nevertheless, Simon often paints during those three hours, which he allotted to himself and which were approved by the kibbutz secretariat. His status as the painter of the kibbutz cannot be challenged. The realism in is work was influenced by Diego Rivera, the Mexican, Yohanan Simon painted again hymns to the idea of life in the kibbutz and represented group scenes of sturdy people, most of them are families resting. Simon of the 1940s also painted murals in his kibbutz, in the "Shemen" factory in Haifa, at the Histadrut exhibition in Haifa and more; He painted paintings for the holidays in Gan Shmuel's dining room, designed posters for the Mapam party, illustrated covers for the "Poalim Library", served as graphic editor of "Al Hamishmar", taught painting in "Kibbutz HaArtzi" courses and presented a solo exhibition (Tel Aviv Museum -1944 and 1947). Surprisingly, despite the poignant realism of his painting, in 1948 he joined the New Horizons group, a group that recorded the vision of abstract art on its banner. The current painting is a quality classic example of his work from the mid-1940s, a work by a recruited artist. See in the painting the choice of representing a community, a collective, a "together”; See the earth tones that dominate the painting and confirm the nationality of the members; See the children and babies who promise a better tomorrow; See the joy of family and the serenity after labor; And see the abundant power from the bodies of the characters. Simon’s painting is didactic and has ideological marking. No wonder he signed his early kibbutz paintings only under the name "Yochanan", as someone who declares himself a "member of the community". And what a wonder that his early kibbutz paintings were painted on wooden lids of orange crates, as another expression of the simplicity of kibbutz life (and the main financial industry).

Throughout the 1940s, Yochanan Simone converted landscapes into man, his paintings took on the character of a monumental mural, increasingly intensifying the presence of Diego Rivera and ... Fernan Leje: Decisive contours closed round figurative shapes of monumental figures: The structure of the paintings was now simpler, sometimes symmetrical in content contrasts (in this painting, the women take care of their children, while the men work and read). Between 1944 - the year of Simon's first exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum (and the receipt of the Dizengoff Prize) - and 1947 - the presumed year of the current painting - Simon's Kibbutz language reached its peak. In a review of the exhibition from 1944, P. Landau wrote (February 21, 1944): “Simon draws his worldview from the life of the kibbutz, from the hard work and the high morals in this life. And is full of this young life spirit and steeped in the taste of ancient culture of Europe. His aim is to depict in a monumental picture of the epic heroism of the Jewish pioneer and laborer. His work is moved by the strong forces in nature, by fertility, by the love of a father and a mother ...”. The same newspaper concluded on May 23, 1947: “Simon's field, in all its works, is the field of a kibbutz, life in society and work in society, peace of nature and family happiness, which spreads from the narrow circle of wife and child and embraces the collective in a big way. "It's hard to believe, but in 1952 Simon will leave the kibbutz and his family, move to Tel Aviv, gets remarried, adapts to a bourgeois life and ... slowly adopts an abstract language for his paintings...

Gideon Ofrat

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